Global attractors for the wave equation with nonlinear damping (Q2498841)

This paper deals with weakly damped wave equations of the form \[ (\ast)\qquad\partial_{tt}u+\sigma(u)\partial_tu-\Delta u+\varphi(u)=f \] subject to the initial-boundary conditions \(u(0)=u_0\), \(\partial_tu(0)=u_1\), \(u|_{\partial\Omega}=0\) on a domain \(\Omega\subset{\mathbb R}^3\). The damping coefficient is bounded away from \(0\) and the second resp.\ first order derivatives of \(\varphi\) and \(\sigma\) are assumed to be linearly bounded. The first part of the paper establishes the existence of appropriate weak energy solutions for \((\ast)\), as well as a dissipativity estimate for them. Then, the existence of a weak attractor is shown, consisting of initial values yielding complete bounded solutions. Moreover, the authors show that a global attractor (in the strong topology on \(H_1\times H_0\) with \(H_s:=D((-\Delta)^s)\)) exists, if a certain energy equality holds. The final section deals with exponential attractors. Compared to nonlinearities of the form \(\sigma(\partial_tu)\), the displacement depending damping \(\sigma(u)\partial_tu\) studied in this paper makes it more difficult to obtain continuity properties of the generated semigroup in the state space.