Paper 4, Section II, C

Partial Differential Equations
Part II, 2013

(i) Show that an arbitrary C2C^{2} solution of the one-dimensional wave equation uttuxx=0u_{t t}-u_{x x}=0 can be written in the form u=F(xt)+G(x+t)u=F(x-t)+G(x+t).

Hence, deduce the formula for the solution at arbitrary t>0t>0 of the Cauchy problem

uttuxx=0,u(0,x)=u0(x),ut(0,x)=u1(x)u_{t t}-u_{x x}=0, \quad u(0, x)=u_{0}(x), \quad u_{t}(0, x)=u_{1}(x)

where u0,u1u_{0}, u_{1} are arbitrary Schwartz functions.

Deduce from this formula a theorem on finite propagation speed for the onedimensional wave equation.

(ii) Define the Fourier transform of a tempered distribution. Compute the Fourier transform of the tempered distribution TtS(R)T_{t} \in \mathcal{S}^{\prime}(\mathbb{R}) defined for all t>0t>0 by the function

Tt(y)={12 if yt0 if y>tT_{t}(y)= \begin{cases}\frac{1}{2} & \text { if }|y| \leqslant t \\ 0 & \text { if }|y|>t\end{cases}

that is, Tt,f=12t+tf(y)dy\left\langle T_{t}, f\right\rangle=\frac{1}{2} \int_{-t}^{+t} f(y) d y for all fS(R)f \in \mathcal{S}(\mathbb{R}). By considering the Fourier transform in xx, deduce from this the formula for the solution of ()(*) that you obtained in part (i) in the case u0=0u_{0}=0.