n-bathycenters

Abstract

Does there exist a polygon with the property that for a suitable point p in the plane every ray with endpoint p intersects the polygon in exactly n connected components? Does there exist a polygon with the property that there are two such points, or three, or a segment of such points?

For polygon P call a point p with the property that every ray from p intersects P in exactly n connected components n-isobathic with respect to P. Define the n-bathycenter of a polygon P as the set of all points p that are n-isobathic with respect to P. Further define a set S to be an n-bathycenter if there exists a polygon P of which S is the n-bathycenter. This paper deals with the characterization of 2- and 3-bathycenters, together with some results on the general case.