Construction of a multisoliton blowup solution to the semilinear wave equation in one space dimension (Q2852540)

In the following series of papers, \textit{F. Merle} and \textit{H. Zaag} [Duke Math. J. 161, No. 15, 2837--2908 (2012; Zbl 1270.35320), Am. J. Math. 134, No. 3, 581--648 (2012; Zbl 1252.35204), Commun. Math. Phys. 282, No. 1, 55--86 (2008; Zbl 1159.35046), J. Funct. Anal. 253, No. 1, 43--121 (2007; Zbl 1133.35070)], Merle and Zaag have given a precise description of the blow up set of blowing up solutions of the semilinear wave equation in one space dimension, clarifying the topological properties of the characteristic and noncharacteristic sets. Moreover, they have specified the behavior of the solution around each blow up point in the similarity variables, depending on whether the point is characteristic or not. In particular, in the case of a characteristic point (whose existence is proved for some solutions), in similarity variables, the solution converges to a finite sum of decoupled solitons. In this paper, Côte and Zaag first refine the asymptotic behavior at a characteristic point. As a corollary, they observe that in general the behavior is not symmetric with respect to the blow up point. The main result of the paper is that for any given number \(k\geq 2\), and for a given point \(a\), there exists a blow up solution of the equation such that \(a\) is a characteristic point and such that the asymptotic behavior at \(a\) in similarity variables involves exactly \(k\) solitons. The dynamics of the solitons are related at the main order by an explicit system of ODE.