Very weak solutions to hypoelliptic wave equations (Q2285467)

The aim of this work is to study the well-posedness of the following Cauchy problem for general positive hypoelliptic (Rockland operators of homogeneous degree \(\nu\)) left-invariant differential operators \(\mathcal{R}\) on general graded Lie groups \(G\) with the non-negative propagation speed \(a=a(t)\) and with the source term \(f=f(t)\in L^{2}(G)\): \[ \begin{cases} \partial_{t}^{2}u(t)+a(t)\mathcal{R} u(t)=f(t), \;t\in [0,T],\\ u(0)=u_{0}\in L^{2}(G),\\ \partial_{t}u(0)=u_{1}\in L^{2}(G). \end{cases} \tag{1} \] The relevance of working with mathematical models associated with Rockland operators can be traced back to the solution of the Rockland conjecture by \textit{B. Helffer} and \textit{J. Nourrigat} [Commun. Partial Differ. Equations 4, 899--958 (1979; Zbl 0423.35040)]. When \(G=(\mathbb{R}^n,+)\) and \(\mathcal{R}=-\triangle\) is the positive Laplacian the equation in (1) is the usual wave equation and the well-posedness of the Cauchy problem (1) for Hölder functions \(a=a(t)\) goes back to \textit{F. Colombini} et al. [Ann. Sc. Norm. Super. Pisa, Cl. Sci., IV. Ser. 6, 511--559 (1979; Zbl 0417.35049)]. As it was pointed out in [\textit{F. Colombini} and \textit{S. Spagnolo}, Acta Math. 148, 243--253 (1982; Zbl 0517.35053)], when \(G=(\mathbb{R},+)\) and \(\mathcal{R}=-\frac{d^{2}}{dx^{2}}\), the Cauchy problem (1) does not have to be well-posed in \(C^{\infty}\) if \(a\in C^{\infty}\) is not strictly positive or if it is in the Hölder class \(a\in C^{\alpha}\) for \(0<\alpha<1\). In order to study the existence of the very weak solutions to (1), the authors have used: (i) the scale of Sobolev spaces associated to Rockland operators and (ii) Gevrey type spaces defined by Rockland operators. The main theorem of this work is Theorem 1.2 where a sharp analysis of the possible functions spaces where one can consider the initial data is considered.