Reflection length in affine Coxeter groups

Affine Coxeter groups have a natural presentation as reflection groups on some affine space. Hence the set R of all its reflections, that is all conjugates of its standard generators, is a natural (infinite) set of generators. Computing the reflection length of an element in an affine Coxeter group means that one wants to determine the length of a minimal presentation of this element with respect to R. In joint work with Joel Brewster Lewis, Jon McCammond and T. Kyle Petersen we were able to provide a simple formula that computes the reflection length of any element in any affine Coxeter group. In this talk I would like to explain this formula, give its simple uniform proof and allude to the geometric intuition behind it.