Existence of a global attractor for semilinear dissipative wave equations on \(\mathbb{R}^N\) (Q1305491)

The authors consider the following semilinear hyperbolic initial value problem: \[ u_{tt}+\delta u_t- \phi(x)\Delta u+ \lambda f(u)= \eta(x),\quad t>0,\tag{1} \] \(u(x,0)= u_0(x)\), \(u_t(x,0)= u_1(x)\), \(x\in\mathbb{R}^N\). The data are subject to a series of assumptions. Those concerning \(\phi\) and \(f\) are as follows: \(\phi(x)>0\), \(x\in\mathbb{R}^N\); \(g(x):= \phi(x)^{-1}\) is in \(C^{0,\gamma}(\mathbb{R}^N)\) for some \(\gamma\in (0,1)\) and \(g\in L^{{1\over 2}N}(\mathbb{R}^N)\cap L^\infty(\mathbb{R}^N)\); \(|f(s)|\leq c_1|s|\), \(|f'(s)|\leq c_2|s|\) for some \(c_1\), \(c_2\). In order to cast (1) into a suitable functional frame the authors introduce some functional spaces. The most important ones are the weighted Hilbert space \(L^2_g(\mathbb{R}^N)\) and the \(L^2\)-closure \(D^{1,2}(\mathbb{R}^N)\) of \(C_0(\mathbb{R}^N)\) with respect to the norm \(\int_{\mathbb{R}^N}|\nabla u|^2 dx\). A crucial role is played by Lemma 2.2 which says that \(D^{1,2}(\mathbb{R}^N)\) is compactly embedded in \(L^2_g(\mathbb{R}^N)\). Based on this setting and with \(\text{dom}(\phi\Delta)= C^\infty_0(\mathbb{R}^N)\), the operator \(-\phi\cdot\Delta\) admits a Friedrichs extension \(A_E\) which has discrete spectrum. Based on this setting, the authors introduce the notion of a weak solution of (1) and prove existence and uniqueness via Faedo-Galerkin method. In order to obtain a global attractor, they prove the existence of an absorbing set. With such a set at disposal, the existence of a global attractor then follows along established lines.