Weakly hyperbolic equations with non-analytic coefficients and lower order terms (Q382309)

The authors study well-posedness of the weakly hyperbolic Cauchy problem \[ D^m_t+ \sum^{m-1}_{j=0} (t,D_x) D^j_t u= 0,\quad (t,x)\in [0,T]\times\mathbb{R}^n, \] \[ D^{h-1}_t u(0,x)= g_h(x),\quad h= 1,\dots, m, \] where \(A_{m-j}(t, D_x)\) is a differential operator of order \(m-j\) with continuous coefficients depending only on \(t\) and \(D_t={1\over i} \partial_t\), \(D_x= {1\over i}\partial_x\). Let \(A_{(m-j)}\) denote the principal part of the characteristic polynomial and let \(\lambda_l(t,\xi)\), \(l= 1,\dots, m\), be real-valued roots of the characteristic polynomial: \[ \tau^m+ \sum^{m-j}_{j=0} A_{(m-j)} (t,\xi) \tau^j= \prod^m_{l=1} (\tau- \lambda_l(t,\xi)). \] Assume that there is some constant \(C>0\) such that \[ |(A_{m-j+1}- A_{m-j})(t, \xi)|\leq C \sum^m_{i=1}\,\Biggl|\sum_{1\leq l_1<\cdots< l_{m-j}\leq m} \lambda_{l_1}(t, \xi)\cdots \lambda_{l_{m-j}}(t, \xi)\Biggr| \] for all \(t\in [0,T]\), \(j= 1,\dots, m\), and for \(\xi\) away from \(0\), i.e. for \(|\xi|\geq R\) for some \(R>0\). Then the authors proved the following theorems. Theorem 1. If the coefficients satisfy \(A_j(\cdot,\xi)\in C([0,T])\) and \(A_{(j)}(\cdot,\xi)\in C^\infty([0, T])\) for all \(\xi\) and \(j= 1,\dots, m\), and if the characteristic roots are real distinct, then the Cauchy problem is well-posed in a Gevrey class. Theorem 2. If \(A_j(\cdot,\xi)\in C([0,T])\) and the coefficients \(A_{(j)}(\cdot,\xi)\) are analytic on \([0, T]\), then the Cauchy problem is \(C^\infty\) and distributionally well-posed. Theorem 3. (i) Assume the conditions of Theorem 1, with \(A_j(\cdot,\xi)\in C([0,T])\) replaced by \(A_j(\cdot,\xi)\in L^\infty([0,T])\), the statement remains true provided one replaces the conclusion \(u\in C^m([0,T]; G^s(\mathbb{R}^n))\) by \(u\in C^{m-1}([0, T]; G^s(\mathbb{R}^n))\cap W^{\infty,m}([0,T]; G^s(\mathbb{R}^n))\). (ii) Assume the conditions of Theorem 2, with \(A_j(\cdot,\xi)\in C([0,T])\) replaced by \(A_j(\cdot, \xi)\in L^\infty([0,T])\). Then the \(C^\infty\) well-posedness remains true provided one replaces the conclusion \(u\in C^m([0, T]; C^\infty(\mathbb{R}^n))\) by \(u\in C^{m-1}([0, T]; C^\infty(\mathbb{R}^n))\cap W^{\infty,m}([0,T]; C^\infty(\mathbb{R}^n))\).