The null condition and global existence of nonlinear elastic waves (Q1909576)

Within the framework of nonlinear hyperelasticity, it is shown that a special class of materials has stored energy functions which give rise to nonlinearities which satisfy a null condition. Under this assumption, global small amplitude classical solutions to the initial value problem are constructed. The result is sharp in the sense that if the null condition is violated, then by a result of \textit{F. John} [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 34, 29-51 (1981; Zbl 0453.35060)] small radial solutions break down in finite time. The proof combines generalized energy methods with a new decay estimate for the linear problem.