Special Session 175: Modern Trends in Partial Differential Equations and General Relativity

Competing time-dependent dissipation mechanisms in wave models: friction vs. viscoelastic damping
Halit Sevki Aslan
University of Sao Paulo
Brazil
Co-Author(s):    Michael Reissig
Abstract:
We study the following Cauchy problem for the linear wave equation with both time-dependent frictional and viscoelastic damping terms: \begin{equation*} \begin{cases} u_{tt}- \Delta u + b(t)u_t - g(t)\Delta u_t=0, &(t,x) \in [0,\infty) \times \mathbb{R}^n, \ u(0,x)= u_0(x),\quad u_t(0,x)= u_1(x), &x \in \mathbb{R}^n. \end{cases} \end{equation*} Our goal is to derive decay estimates for higher-order energy norms of solutions to this problem. We focus on the interplay between the time-dependent coefficients in the frictional damping $b(t)u_t$ and viscoelastic damping $-g(t)\Delta u_t$, and their influence on the qualitative behavior of solutions. The analysis is based on the classification of the damping mechanisms and employs the WKB method in the extended phase space.