Orbital stability of plane waves in the Klein-Gordon equation against localized perturbations

TL;DR

This paper proves the orbital stability of plane wave solutions in the complex Klein-Gordon equation under localized perturbations, extending classical stability theory to more general perturbations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method based on amplitude-phase decomposition to analyze stability beyond classical frameworks, accommodating localized and unbounded perturbations.

Findings

Established orbital stability of plane waves under localized perturbations.

Extended stability results to include unbounded phase modulations.

Achieved results that are sharp up to the spectral stability boundary.

Abstract

We investigate the stability and long-term behavior of spatially periodic plane waves in the complex Klein-Gordon equation under localized perturbations. Such perturbations render the wave neither localized nor periodic, placing its stability analysis outside the scope of the classical orbital stability theory for Hamiltonian systems developed by Grillakis, Shatah, and Strauss. Inspired by Zhidkov's work on the stability of time-periodic, spatially homogeneous states in the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, we develop an alternative method that relies on an amplitude-phase decomposition and leverages conserved quantities tailored to the perturbation equation. We establish an orbital stability result of plane waves that is locally uniform in space, accommodating $L^2$-localized perturbations as well as unbounded phase modulations. Our result is sharp in the sense that it holds up to the spectral stability boundary.