Life-span of classical solutions to nonlinear wave equations in two space dimensions (Q1900618)

The authors consider the 2-dimensional Cauchy problem for a fully nonlinear wave equation \[ u_{tt}- \Delta u+ \sum^2_{i, j= 1} b_{ij}(u, Du) u_{x_i x_j}+ 2 \sum^2_{j+ 1} a_{0, j}(u, Du) u_{tx_j}+ F_0(u, Du),\tag{CP} \] \[ u(0, x)= \varepsilon\varphi(x),\quad u_t(0, x)= \varepsilon\psi(x), \] where \(x= (x_1, x_2)\in \mathbb{R}^2\), \(t> 0\) is the time, \(\varepsilon> 0\) a small parameter, \(D= ({\partial\over \partial t}, {\partial\over \partial x_1}, {\partial\over \partial x_2})\), and \(\varphi, \psi\in C^\infty_0(\mathbb{R}^2)\). Let \(\lambda= (u, \lambda_0, \lambda_1, \lambda_2)\) be the independent variable. The assumptions are \(b_{ij}(\lambda)= b_{ji}(\lambda)\); \(b_{ij}(\lambda)\), \(a_{0, j}(\lambda)= O(|\lambda|)\) and \(F_0(\lambda)= O(|\lambda|^2)\) for \(\lambda\to 0\), and \[ \sum^2_{i, j= 1} (\delta_{ij}+ b_{ij}(\lambda)) \xi_i \xi_j\geq m_0|\xi|^2,\qquad \forall \xi\in \mathbb{R}^2 \] for some constant \(m_0> 0\), where \(|\lambda|\leq \lambda_0\) with \(\lambda_0> 0\) small enough, and \(\delta_{ij}\) is the Kronecker's delta symbol. Let \(T(\varepsilon)\) be the life span of the solution to the problem (CP). Then, they obtained a lower bound of \(T(\varepsilon)\) as follows: \(T(\varepsilon)= be(\varepsilon)\), or \(= b\varepsilon^{- 1}\), if \(\int_{\mathbb{R}^2} \psi(x)dx= 0\), or \(= b\varepsilon^{- 2}\) if \(\partial^2_u F_0(0, 0)= 0\), where \(b\) is a positive constant independent of \(\varepsilon\), and \(e(\varepsilon)\) is defined by \(\varepsilon^2 e^2(\varepsilon) \log(1+ e(\varepsilon))= 1\).