Energy decay of solutions to the wave equations with linear dissipation localized near infinity (Q1596549)

This paper deals with the mixed initial-boundary value problem \[ \begin{cases} w_{tt}- \Delta w+b(x,t) w_t=0\quad & (x,t)\in \Omega\times(0,\infty),\\ w(x,0)=w_1(x),\;w_t(x,0)= w_2(x),\quad & x\in\Omega,\\ w(x,t)=0\quad & (x,t)\in \partial\Omega \times(0,\infty). \end{cases} \] The goal of this paper is to study the energy decay of solutions when the dissipative term \(b(x,t)w_t\) is effective only near infinity.