Reflection and interaction of progressing waves for semilinear wave equations (Q2644843)

On the basis of the works by M. Beals, G. Metivier, R. Melrose, N. Ritter, J. M. Bony, etc., the author studies the interactions of two progressing waves with reflection on the boundary for boundary value problems of semilinear wave equations in two space variables. His result shows that, in this case, besides the linear-predicted singularities, there appears an anomalous reflected wave which issues from the intersection point of two progressing waves on the boundary and propagates along the characteristic cone. More precisely, in the domain \(\{y>0\}\) of the Euclidean space \(\{\) t,x,y\(\}\), the author studies solutions of the boundary value problem \[ (1)\quad Pu\equiv (\partial_ t^ 2-2(\partial^ 2_ x+\partial^ 2_ y))u=f(t,x,y,u),\quad u|_{y=0}=0, \] with conormal singularities, where f is a \(C^{\infty}\) function of its arguments. The main result proved in this paper is the following: Let \(r\geq 1\) and \(s>r+5/2\). If \(u\in H^ s_{loc}\) is a solution of the problem (1) and \(u\in I^{k,r+1}(S_ b)\) in \(t<0\) then \(u\in I^{k,r- 1}(S_ a)\) in \(t>0.\) The statement \(u\in I^{k,s}(S)\), where \(S=\{S_ 1,...,S_{\ell_ 0}\}\) is a given system of submanifolds, \(k\geq 0\) is a given integer and \(s\geq 0\), means that for any \(z_ 0\in \cup S_{\ell}\), there exists a neighbourhood \(\Omega_{z_ 0}\) such that \(D^ su\in L^{\infty}\), \(V_ 1...V_ hu\in H^ s(\Omega_{z_ 0})\), \(h\leq k\), where \(V_ 1,...,V_ h\) are vector fields tangential to each \(submanifolds.\) S\({}_ a=\{\pi_ 1,\pi_ 2,\pi '_ 1,\pi '_ 2,\ell_ 1,...,\ell_ 7,S_ 0,0\}\), \(S_ b=\{\pi_ 1,\pi_ 2,\pi '_ 1,\pi '_ 2,\ell_ 8,\ell_ 9,\ell_{10}\}\), \(S_ 0=\{2t^ 2=x^ 2+y^ 2,t>0,y>0\}\), \(\pi_ 1=\{2t-x-y=0\}\), \(\pi_ 2=\{2t+x-y=0\}\), \(\pi '_ 1=\{2t- x+y=0\}\), \(\pi '_ 2=\{2t+x+y=0\}\) and \(\ell_ i\) denotes the ray passing through \(L_ i\) (1\(\leq i\leq 10)\), where \(L_ 1=(1,0,2)\), \(L_ 2=(1,2,0)\), \(L_ 3=(1,-2,0)\), \(L_ 4=(1,1,1)\), \(L_ 5=(1,-1,1)\), \(L_ 6=(1,\sqrt{2},0)\), \(L_ 7=(1,-\sqrt{2},0)\), \(L_ 8=(-1,0,2)\), \(L_ 9=(-1,-2,0)\), \(L_{10}=(-1,2,0)\).