Blowup of smooth solutions for general 2-D quasilinear wave equations with small initial data

Abstract: For the 2-D quasilinear wave equation $\displaystyle \sum_{i,j=0}^2g_{ij}(\nabla u)\partial_{ij}u=0$ with coefficients independent of the solution $u$, a blowup result for small data solutions has been established in [1,2] provided that the null condition does not hold and a generic nondegeneracy condition on the initial data is fulfilled. In this paper, we are concerned with the more general 2-D quasilinear wave equation $\displaystyle \sum_{i,j=0}^2g_{ij}(u, \nabla u)\partial_{ij}u=0$ with coefficients that depend simultaneously on $u$ and $\nabla u$. When the null condition does not hold and a suitable nondegeneracy condition on the initial data is satisfied, we show that smooth small data solutions blow up in finite time. Furthermore, we derive an explicit expression for the lifespan and establish the blowup mechanism.