Energy decay for damped wave equations
Abstract
A number of results are known establishing exponential/polynomial/logarithmic decay of energy for (damped) wave equations. Typically the results have been obtained by estimating the resolvent of the generator of a certain bounded $C_0$-semigroup, and then showing that the estimates imply certain rates of decay for the smooth orbits of the semigroup. We shall present a result of this type, which is both general and sharp, and which has a simple proof thanks to a device of Newman and Korevaar.