Null form estimates for \((1/2,1/2)\) symbols and local existence for a quasilinear Dirichlet-wave equation (Q2769907)

A first aim of the paper is to prove estimates of the type NEWLINE\[NEWLINE\|Q(du,dv)\|_{H^1(\mathbb{R}^{1+3})}\leq C(\|u(0)\|_{H^2(\mathbb{R}^3)}+ \|\partial_0 u(0)\|_{H^1(\mathbb{R}^3)}) (\|v(0)\|_{H^2(\mathbb{R}^3)}+ \|\partial_0 v(0)\|_{H^1(\mathbb{R}^3)})NEWLINE\]NEWLINE (or local variants of it), where \(u\), \(v\) are in the null space of the wave operator \(\partial^2_0- \Delta_g\), \(g\) denoting the underlying metric tensor. The quadratic form \((u,v)\mapsto Q(du,dv)\) may be either \((u,v)\mapsto \partial_0 u\partial_0v- \sum^3_{i,j=1} g^{ij} \partial_iu \partial_jv\) or any of the following \((u,v)\mapsto\partial_\alpha u\partial_\beta v- \partial_\beta u\partial_\alpha v\), \(\alpha,\beta= 0,1,2,3\). These estimates are then used to obtain a local in time existence result for the Dirichle initial boundary value problem for a quasilinear wave equation in an exterior domain \(\Omega\) with smooth, strictly geodesically concave boundary \(\partial\Omega\) (convex obstacle problem).