The Cauchy problem for the nonlinear damped wave equation with slowly decaying data

Abstract: We study the Cauchy problem for the nonlinear damped wave equation and establish the large data local well-posedness and small data global well-posedness with slowly decaying initial data. We also prove that the asymptotic profile of the global solution is given by a solution of the corresponding parabolic problem, which shows that the solution of the damped wave equation has the diffusion phenomena. Moreover, we show blow-up of solution and give the estimate of the lifespan for a subcritical nonlinearity. In particular, we determine the critical exponent for any space dimension.