Cantor families of periodic solutions of wave equations with \(C^{k}\) nonlinearities (Q927388)

The authors prove the existence of Cantor families of small amplitude periodic solutions for completely resonant wave equations with only differentiable nonlinearities. These results can be seen as extensions to Hamiltonian PDEs of the classical finite dimensional Weinstein-Moser and Fadell-Rabinowitz resonant center theorems [see \textit{A. Weinstein}, Invent. Math. 20, 47--57 (1973; Zbl 0264.70020)], [\textit{J. Moser}, Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 29, 727--747 (1976); addendum ibid. 31, 529--530 (1978; Zbl 0346.34024) and \textit{E. R. Fadell} and \textit{P. Rabinowitz}, Invent. Math. 45, 139--174 (1978; Zbl 0403.57001)]. Bifurcation of periodic and quasi-periodic solutions for analytic PDEs has been widely investigated in the last years with both KAM methods [see, e.g., \textit{S. B. Kuksin}, Analysis of Hamiltonian PDE's. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2000; Zbl 0960.35001), \textit{E. Wayne}, Commun. Math. Phys. 127, No. 3, 479--528 (1990; Zbl 0708.35087)], and Newton-Nash-Moser iterative schemes [see, e.g., \textit{W. Craig} and \textit{E. Wayne}, Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 46, No. 11, 1409--1498 (1993; Zbl 0794.35104), \textit{J. Bourgain}, Ann. Math. 148, No. 2, 363--439 (1998; Zbl 0928.35161), \textit{M. Berti} and \textit{P. Bolle}, Duke Math. J. 134, No. 2, 359--419 (2006; Zbl 1103.35077)]. Differently from the previous literature, the nonlinearity is here only finitely differentiable. This additional difficulty requires substantial modifications of the Nash-Moser scheme used for the existence proof of Sobolev smooth solutions: indeed, the standard Newton scheme is not sufficient. The use of Nirenberg-Moser-type interpolation estimates is required to prove a-priori bounds for the divergence of the high norms of the approximate solutions. The most difficult step is to prove the tame estimates of the inverse linearized operator in the Sobolev scale. This is a delicate issue because the lower is the regularity, the stronger are the resonance effects due to the small divisors.