Improved Kato's lemma on ordinary differential inequality and its application to semilinear wave equations

Abstract: We are interested in the upper bound of the lifespan of solutions of semilinear wave equations from above. For the sub-critical case in high dimensions, it has been believed that the basic tools of its analysis are Kato's lemma on ordinary differential inequalities and the rescaling argument in the functional method. But there is a small lack of delicate analysis and no published paper about this. Here we give a simple alternative proof by means of improved Kato's lemma without any rescaling argument.