Critical exponent for the semilinear wave equations with a damping increasing in the far field (Q1729789)

The article refers to a small data Cauchy problem to the damped semilinear wave equation $u_{tt}-\Delta u+a(x)b(t)u_t=|u|^p$, $(t,x)\in (0,\infty)\times\mathbb{R}^n$, $u(0,x)=\epsilon u_o(x)$, $u_t(0,x)=\epsilon u_1(x)$, $x\in \mathbb{R}^n$, $p>1$, $\epsilon>0$ where the coefficient of the damping term is given by $a(x)b(t):=a_o(1+{|x|^2})^{-{\alpha}/2}(1+t)^{-\beta}$. The initial data belong to the energy space, and supp($u_o$, $u_1$) is included in a sphere $|x|\leq R_o$. The aim of the study is to determine the critical exponent $p_c$. \par Two main cases are considered, $\alpha<0$ and $\beta=0$ or $\alpha<0$ and $\beta=1$. The understanding of the critical exponent here is: if $p>p_c$, then for any initial data satisfying the above assumptions and sufficiently small $\epsilon$ a unique global solution exists, and if $p\leq p_c$, there exist initial data satisfying the assumption such that for small $\epsilon$, the local solution blows up in finite time. One proves that the critical exponent is $p_c=1+ [2/(n-\alpha)]$, $n$ being the dimension of space. As a first result one proves that in the supercritical case, for $\beta\in(-1,1)$, the Cauchy problem admits a unique global solution. Further, the existence of a unique solution to the small data Cauchy problem is proved in the supercritical case for $\beta=1$. In the subcritical as well as critical cases, a result on blow-up of the solution is proved. One obtains sharp upper estimates for the lifespan of the local solution.