Lifespan of classical solutions to quasilinear wave equations outside of a star-shaped obstacle in four space dimensions (Q2253733)

The authors studied long time existence for quasilinear wave equations, exterior to a star-shaped obstacle, in four space dimensions, with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition. The initial data are assumed to be small (of size \(\epsilon\)), compactly supported smooth functions. The nonlinear term is assumed to be quadratic, but may explicitly depend on the unknown function itself. By some new \(L^1_t L^2_x\) and weighted \(L^2_{t,x}\) estimates for the unknown function itself, together with energy estimates and KSS type estimates, the authors obtain a lower bound of the lifespan \(T\geq \exp(c \epsilon^{-2} )\), which coincides with the sharp lower bound of lifespan estimate for the corresponding Cauchy problem. For the corresponding Cauchy problem, this kind of lower bound was proven by Li and Zhou (simplified by Lindblad and Sogge), and the sharpness of Li and Zhou's estimate was shown by Takamura and Wakasa for the sample equation \(\partial_t^2u-\Delta u=|u|^2\). In fact, when the spatial dimension \(n =4\), the equation \(\partial_t^2u-\Delta u=|u|^2\) is just corresponding to the critical case of the Strauss conjecture, so it could be regarded as the most difficult case to be handled. For more history and details on the Strauss conjecture, we refer the reader to \textit{H. Lindblad} et al. [Math. Ann. 359, No. 3--4, 637--661 (2014; Zbl 1295.35327)] and references therein. For this problem exterior to the obstacle, the sharpness of this lower bound of the lifespan is still open. For similar problem in other spatial dimensions, dimension three and higher has been clear and the case of dimension two is remaining open.