Hyperbolic second order equations with non-regular time dependent coefficients (Q2346870)

The purpose of the paper is to study the well-posedness of the Cauchy problem for the hyperbolic second order equations under weak regularity assumptions on coefficients. The notions of Roumieu Gevrey functions, Beurling Gevrey functions, moderateness and `every weak solutions of order \(s\) for a Cauchy problem' are introduced first. One proves that in case the coefficients in the hyperbolic equation are distributions with compact support included in \([0,T]\) and Cauchy data are compactly supported distributions, then the stated Cauchy problem has a very weak solution of order \(s\). This statement is the main result of the article. It is completed with a result on uniqueness and consistency for very weak solutions of the Cauchy problem. The proof of well-posedness of the Cauchy problem is divided in three cases. In the first case, initial data are assumed to be compactly supported Gevrey functions, in the second case smooth functions and in the third case one considers distributional initial data. The article ends with a result on consistency with the classical well-posedness results.