Mallée's parabolic-triangle isobilliard conjecture

Let BB be the unit disk in the plane, and for a convex shape KR2K\subset\mathbb{R}^2 let c(K×B)c(K\times B) be the length of the shortest closed generalized billiard orbit in KK. Mallée's isobilliard conjecture. Mallée's parabolic triangle has the smallest area among convex shapes KR2K\subset\mathbb{R}^2 satisfying

c(K×B)=1.c(K\times B)=1.

This is an equivalent formulation of the conjectural optimality of Mallée's example in Wetzel's worm problem. The source says the problem is still open.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Alexey Balitskiy, Ivan Mitrofanov and Alexander Polyanskii, “Triangle covering problems and the Viterbo inequality in the plane”, arXiv:2603.12495 (2026).

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