A System of Billiard and Its Application to Information-Theoretic Entropy

Abstract: In this article, we define an information-theoretic entropy based on the Ihara zeta function of a graph which is called the Ihara entropy. A dynamical system consists of a billiard ball and a set of reflectors correspond to a combinatorial graph. The reflectors are represented by the vertices of the graph. Movement of the billiard ball between two reflectors is represented by the edges. The prime cycles of this graph generate the bi-infinite sequences of the corresponding symbolic dynamical system. The number of different prime cycles of a given length can be expressed in terms of the adjacency matrix of the oriented line graph. It also constructs the formal power series expansion of Ihara zeta function. Therefore, the Ihara entropy has a deep connection with the dynamical system of billiards. As an information-theoretic entropy, it fulfils the generalized Shannon-Khinchin axioms. It is a weakly decomposable entropy whose composition law is given by the Lazard formal group law.