Long-time dynamics of Kirchhoff wave models with strong nonlinear damping (Q652476)

The author considers the equation \(\partial_{tt} u - \sigma \Delta \partial_t u - \phi \Delta u + f(u) = h(x) \) in a bounded domain \(\Omega \subset R^d\), where the coefficients \(\sigma\), \(\phi\) depend on the \(L^2\)-norm of \(\nabla u\). The assumptions require that \(\sigma\) is positive but allow \(\phi\) to be non-positive. Nonlinearity of \(f\) can have supercritical growth, in which case one requires lower bounds of the same order. The author proves the existence of a unique solution satisfying the energy equality. Under slightly stronger assumptions, the dissipativity and existence of a finite-dimensional attractor are also proved. The mathematical techniques used in the paper are more or less standard for this type of problems: testing the equation by \((-\Delta)^{-1}u_t\) in the proof of uniqueness overcomes the lack of regularity of \(u_t\). Secondly, because of the \(f(u)\) term in the supercritical case, the phase space includes \(L^{p+1}\)-weak topology, where the lack of compactness is overcome by the energy equality, which in turn rests on the aforementioned coerciveness of \(f\).