Decay estimates for second order evolution equations with memory (Q2476494)

The authors consider an abstract integro-differential equation \[ u''(t)+Au(t)-\int_0^t\beta(t-s)Au(s)\,ds=\nabla F(u(t)),\quad t>0 \] in a Hilbert space \(X\), where \(A:D(A)\subset X\to X\) is an accretive self-adjoint linear operator with dense domain, and \(\nabla F\) denotes the gradient of a Gâteaux differentiable functional \(F:D(\sqrt A)\to R.\) They develop a unified method to derive decay estimates under the minimal assumptions on the kernel \(\beta:[0,\infty)\to [0,\infty)\). It is assumed to be locally absolutely continuous satisfying \[ \beta(0)>0,\quad \int_0^\infty \beta(t)\,dt<1,\;\beta'(t)\leq -k\beta^{1+\frac 1p},\quad k>0,\;p\in (2,\infty]. \] It is shown that the energy of any mild solution with sufficiently small initial data, decays at infinity with the same (exponential or polynomial) rate as \(\beta\). For linear problems (\(F\equiv 0\)), no restriction on the initial data is required. Instead of a Lyapunov function the authors concentrate on the original energy of the problem using the integral inequalities and multipliers technique.