Global existence and asymptotic behavior of solutions for quasi-linear dissipative plate equation

In this paper we focus on the initial value problem for quasi-linear dissipative plate equation in multi-dimensional space (n ≥ 2). This equation verifies the decay property of the regularity-loss type, which causes the difficulty in deriving the global a priori estimates of solutions. We overcome this difficulty by employing a time-weighted L² energy method which makes use of the integrability of ||(δ²_xu _t,δ³_xu)(t)||L∞. This L∞ norm can be controlled by showing the optimal L² decay estimates for lower-order derivatives of solutions. Thus we obtain the desired a priori estimate which enables us to prove the global existence and asymptotic decay of solutions under smallness and enough regularity assumptions on the initial data. Moreover, we show that the solution can be approximated by a simple-looking function, which is given explicitly in terms of the fundamental solution of a fourth-order linear parabolic equation.