Decay of correlations for billiards with flat points I: channel effect

Abstract: In this paper we constructed a special family of semidispersing billiards bounded on a rectangle with a few dispersing scatters. We assume there exists a pair of flat points (with zero curvature) on the boundary of these scatters, whose tangent lines form a channel in the billiard table that is perpendicular to the vertical sides of the rectangle. The billiard can be induced to a Lorenz gas with infinite horizon when replacing the rectangle by a torus. We study the mixing rates of the one-parameter family of the semi-dispersing billiards and the Lorenz gas on a torus; and show that the correlation functions of both maps decay polynomially.