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Horizons and free path distributions in quasiperiodic Lorentz gases

We study the structure of quasiperiodic Lorentz gases, i.e., particles bouncing elastically off fixed obstacles arranged in quasiperiodic lattices. By employing a construction to embed such structures into a higher dimensional periodic hyperlattice, we give a simple and efficient algorithm for numerical simulation of the dynamics of these systems. This same construction shows that quasiperiodic Lorentz gases generically exhibit a regime with infinite horizon, that is, empty channels through which the particles move without colliding, when the obstacles are small enough; in this case, the distribution of free paths is asymptotically a power law with exponent -3, as expected from infinite-horizon periodic Lorentz gases. For the critical radius at which these channels disappear, however, a new regime with locally-finite horizon arises, where this distribution has an unexpected exponent of -5, previously observed only in a Lorentz gas formed by superposing three incommensurable periodic lattices in the Boltzmann-Grad limit where the radius of the obstacles tends to zero.