Stable and Unstable Potential-Well Dynamics for an Indirectly Damped Wave-MGT System with General Focusing Sources

Abstract

We study a conservative semilinear wave equation coupled through a zero-order interaction to a dissipative Moore--Gibson--Thompson equation on a bounded domain. The wave component carries no direct damping and is driven by a general focusing source $f(u)$. The augmented variable $w=v+τv_t$ reveals an exact coupled energy and a coercive potential-well geometry. The source assumptions are formulated through $H_θ(s)=\frac1θsf(s)-F(s)$, $F(s)=\int_0^s f(r)\,d r$, $θ>2$. Under $L^2$-subcritical $C^1$ growth, smallness at the origin, nonnegativity and radial monotonicity of $H_θ$, and a nontrivial focusing condition, we establish local well-posedness, the exact energy identity, and a continuation alternative for arbitrary finite-energy data. For nonzero coupling, the linearized semigroup is strongly stable, whereas a wave-branch expansion precludes uniform exponential stability and positive-time compactness. Below the coupled well depth, the stable set is positively invariant and generates global solutions, while data with negative Nehari functional blow up in finite time without a sign condition on the initial velocities. At the critical level $E(0)=d$, nonzero coupling yields a complete trichotomy into stable entry, finite-time blow-up, or a stationary Nehari ground state. Under the same coupling condition, every stable trajectory converges weakly to zero without any compactness hypothesis. A renormalized high-frequency identity shows that vanishing of the accumulated nonlinear high--low flux is equivalent to relative compactness of the orbit and to strong convergence in the natural energy space. We give several sufficient criteria, including finite total variation of the nonlinear force in $L^2(Ω)$.