On the profile of energy concentration at blow-up points for subconformal focusing nonlinear waves

Abstract

We consider singularities of the focusing subconformal nonlinear wave equation and some generalizations of it. At noncharacteristic points on the singularity surface, Merle and Zaag have identified the rate of blow-up of the H 1 H^1 -norm of the solution inside cones that terminate at the singularity. We derive bounds that restrict how this H 1 H^1 -energy can be distributed inside such cones. Our proof relies on new localized estimates—obtained using Carleman-type inequalities—for such nonlinear waves. These bound the L p + 1 L^{p+1} -norm in the interior of timelike cones by their H 1 H^1 -norm near the boundary of the cones. Such estimates can also be applied to obtain certain integrated decay estimates for globally regular solutions to such equations in the interior of time cones.