A semilinear wave equation with nonmonotone nonlinearity (Q913129)

Consider the boundary value problem of the one-dimensional nonlinear wave equation \[ (*)\quad u_{tt}-u_{xx}+\lambda u=cq(x,t)+r(x,t)+g(u), \] \[ u(0,t)=u(\pi,t)=0,\quad u(x,t)=u(x,t+2\pi),\quad (x,t)\in [0,\pi]\times {\mathbb{R}}. \] It is proved that for \(\lambda \in {\mathbb{R}}\setminus \{k^ 2-j^ 2\), \(k=1,2,3,...\), \(j=0,1,2,...\}\) a weak solution of (*) exists, if c is large enough and if (beside minor assumptions on q and r) \(\lim_{| u| \to \infty}g'(u)=0\) holds. For the proof, functions \(w_ n\) are defined by an iteration scheme of linear wave equations corresponding to (*). Using the projection of \(w_ n\) onto the kernel of the selfadjoint operator \(Au=u_{tt}-u_{xx}\) (with the boundary conditions of (*)) and onto the orthogonal complement, it is shown that \(w_ n\) converges to a weak solution of (*).