Nonexistence of global solutions to semilinear wave equations in high dimensions (Q760603)

This paper considers a semilinear wave equation with nonhomogeneous term \(| u(x,t)|^ p\) \((p>1)\) in greater than three dimensions. It shows that global solutions do not exist when \(1<p<p_ 0(n)\), where \(p_ 0(n)\) is the positive root of \((n-1)x^ 2-(n+1)x-2=0,\) provided the initial data has compact support and satisfies a certain positivity condition. The difficulty that the Riemann function for the wave equation is no longer a positive operator when \(n>3\) is overcome by averaging the Riemann function in time.