Necessary and sufficient conditions for the well-posedness of the Cauchy problem for a class of hyperbolic operators with triple characteristics (Q749765)

The purpose of the paper is to establish under which Levi conditions on the lower order terms of the operator, the Cauchy problem for hyperbolic equations with triple characteristics is well posed. The operator is of order m with principal symbol admitting at triple characteristic points a localization which factors out as a product of a linear form and a noneffectively hyperbolic quadratic form. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the well-posedness are established. The appendices give a result on the behavior of the Hamiltonian flow of the principal symbol of the operators satisfying the assumptions, and an example of an operator verifying the Levi conditions imposed.