On the existence and uniqueness of solutions to an asymptotic equation of a variational wave equation (Q1284791)

The main aim of the authors is to show that the initial-boundary value problem \[ \partial_t v+ u\partial_x v= -(1/2)v^2,\quad \partial_x u= v(t,x),\quad x>0,\quad t>0, \] \[ u(x,t)|_{x= 0}= 0,\quad v|_{t=0}= v_0(x) \] has a unique global admissible solution if \(v_0(x)\in L^2([0,\infty))\), \(v_0(x)\geq 0\), and has compact support. By definition, an admissible weak solution of the above-mentioned problem consists of the couple of functions \((v(t,x),u(t,x))\) which satisfy the following relations: \[ (v(t,x), u(t,x))\in L^\infty_{\text{loc}}(\mathbb{R}^+, L^2(\mathbb{R}^+))\times C([0, \infty)\times \mathbb{R}^+), \] \(\partial_t v+ \partial_x(uv)= (1/2)v^2\), \(\partial_xu= v\) (in the sense of distribution), \(v(t,x)\leq 2/t\) a.e. \((t,x)\in \mathbb{R}^+\times \mathbb{R}^+\), \(u(t,x)|_{x= 0}= 0\) and \(v(t,x)= v_0(x)\) (in the sense of \(C[(0,\infty), L^1(\mathbb{R}^+))\), and the integral of \(v^2(t,x)\) for \(x\in \mathbb{R}^+\) is a nonincreasing function of \(t\in [0,\infty)\), where \(\mathbb{R}^+\) denotes the interval \((0,\infty)\). The authors also give an explicit expression of \(v(t,x)\).