Rogue waves for semilinear wave equations

Abstract

We study the semilinear wave equation $ V(x) \partial_t^2 u + d(t) M(x,\nabla_x) u=\tilde{V}(x) \tilde{d}(t) |u|^{p-1}u$ on $ \mathbb{R}^N \times \mathbb{R}$ and show the existence of solutions which are localized in space and in time, called rogue waves, by means of variational methods. We introduce an energy functional on a suitable Hilbert space, and provide sufficient conditions on the coefficients $V, \tilde{V}, d, \tilde{d}$, the elliptic operator $M$ and $p>1$ for the existence of a critical point. Our approach is based on a detailed analysis of the wave type operator and in particular its spectral properties. Further regularity considerations show that critical points are weak solutions to our equation. Moreover, we provide examples of the coefficients and the elliptic operator which satisfy our assumptions.