Scattering theory in the energy space for a class of nonlinear wave equations (Q912297): Difference between revisions

The authors study the asymptotic behaviour in time of the solutions and the theory of scattering in the energy space for the nonlinear wave equation \[ \square \phi +f(\phi)=0\quad in\quad {\mathbb{R}}^ n,\quad n\geq 3. \] They prove the existence of the wave operators, asymptotic completeness for small initial data and, for \(n\geq 4\), asymptotic completeness for arbitrarily large data. The assumptions on f cover the case where f behaves slightly better than a single power \(p=1+4/(n-2),\) both near zero and at infinity. For instance, they cover the case where (*) \(f(\phi)=\phi g(| \phi |)\) and g is a smooth non-negative function that behaves as (**) \(g(s)=\lambda_ 1s^{p_ 1-1}\) for \(0\leq s\leq a\), \(g(s)=\lambda_ 2s^{p_ 2-1}\) for \(s\geq 1/a\) for some a, \(0<a<1\), with \(0\leq p_ 2- 1<4/(n-2)=p_ 1-1.\) The proof of asymptotic completeness, on the other hand, requires the existence of some norm that decays integrably at infinity in time for solutions of the free equation \(\square \phi =0\). As a consequence, that proof applies only to the case of space dimension \(n\geq 4\). It requires in addition a reinforcement of the assumption on f which takes the form \[ 0\leq p_ 2-1<4/(n-2)<p_ 1-1 \] in the special case (*), (**).