Sharp decay rate for the damped wave equation with convex-shaped damping

Abstract: We revisit the damped wave equation on two-dimensional torus where the damped region does not satisfy the geometric control condition. We show that if the damping vanishes as a H\"older function $|x|^{\beta}$, and in addition, the boundary of the damped region is strictly convex, the wave is stable at rate $t^{-1+\frac{2}{2\beta+7}}$, which is better than the known optimal decay rate $t^{-1+\frac{1}{\beta+3}}$ for strip-shaped dampings of the same H\"older regularity. Moreover, we show by example that the decay rate is optimal. This illustrates the fact that the energy decay rate depends not only on the order of vanishing of the damping, but also on the shape of the damped region. The main ingredient of the proof is the averaging method (normal form reduction) developed by Hitrick and Sj\"ostrand (\cite{Hi1}\cite{Sj}).