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Almost global existence means a lifespan which grows exponentially in the inverse size of small initial data, typically $T_{\epsilon }\ge \exp (c/\epsilon )-1$ for derivative-quadratic semilinear wave equations in three dimensions. Commuted wave energy and the Klainerman-Sobolev inequality lead to a logarithmic accumulation $\epsilon \log (1+T)$ in a bootstrap argument. This implies existence up to every fixed inverse power ${\epsilon }^{-N}$ when the data are small enough depending on $N$.

A commuted wave energy controls derivatives of a solution after applying the commutation vector fields for the wave equation. A convenient equivalent norm is $A_m(t)={\sum }_{|I|\le m}\Vert \partial Z^{I}u(t){\Vert }_2$. The wave energy estimate controls its growth through commuted sources, while the Klainerman-Sobolev inequality gives pointwise decay for low-order derivatives.

One version of the Klainerman-Sobolev inequality, for a sufficiently decaying smooth function $\psi$ on ${\mathbb{R}}^{1+3}$, isHere $I$ denotes a word of length $|I|$ in the following eleven commutation vector fields for the wave equation:The first four are spacetime translation vector fields; the next three are spatial rotation vector fields; the next three are Lorentz boost vector fields; and $S$ is the scaling vector field. The vector field method for wave equations uses these vector fields because their commutators with the d'Alembert operator obeyIn particular the Klainerman-Sobolev inequality impliesThe displayed L2 norms are spatial norms at fixed time; the spacetime vector fields can contain time derivatives. No wave equation assumption is needed for the Klainerman-Sobolev inequality itself.

We establish a quantitative almost global existence for wave equations estimate. Take $0<\epsilon \le 1$, fix an integer $m\ge 6$, and use the commutation vector fields for the wave equation from the preceding part. Put $\partial =({\partial }_t,\nabla )$ and define the commuted wave energyAll these L2 norms are finite on any smooth existence interval by finite propagation speed. At $t=0$, the polynomial coefficients of the vector fields are bounded on the fixed compact support of the Cauchy data. Whenever a higher time derivative occurs, use ${\varphi }_{tt}=\Delta \varphi -{\varphi }_t^2$ and its differentiated versions to express it in terms of initial spatial derivatives. Every term contains at least one factor of $\epsilon$; consequentlyfor a constant depending only on finitely many derivatives and the support radius of ${\varphi }_0,{\varphi }_1$.

The commutators $[Z,{\partial }_{\mu }]$ are constant linear combinations of translations. Together with $[\square ,S]=2\square$ and the Leibniz rule, this shows that each commuted source is a finite linear combination of productsThis statement includes the extra copies of the original source produced by the scaling vector field. In each product put the factor with fewer commutations in the Lp norm $L^{\infty }$ and the other in the L2 norm. The lower order is at most $\lfloor m/2\rfloor$. Applying the Klainerman-Sobolev inequality to ${\partial }_{\mu }{Z}^J\varphi$ costs at most two additional commutations; commuting those past ${\partial }_{\mu }$ introduces only lower-order translations. Since $\lfloor m/2\rfloor +2\le m$,The inhomogeneous wave energy estimate now givesLet $T_{\epsilon }={\epsilon }^{-N}$. Use a bootstrap argument with $A_m(t)\le 2C_0\epsilon$ up to the smaller of $T_{\epsilon }$ and the maximal existence time. The energy estimate improves this toFor each fixed $N$,Choose ${\epsilon }_N\le 1$ so that $4C_m{C}_0\epsilon \log (1+{\epsilon }^{-N})\le 1/2$ for every $0<\epsilon \le {\epsilon }_N$. Then $A_m(t)\le (3/2)C_0\epsilon$, a strict improvement. A continuity argument closes the bootstrap argument.

Finally, the translation terms in $A_m$ control ordinary spatial Sobolev norms of $\partial \varphi$. The missing L2 norm of $\varphi$ satisfiesThus the full local-existence Sobolev norms remain bounded on this finite interval. The smooth continuation criterion for semilinear wave equations extends the solution past any finite endpoint before $T_{\epsilon }$. To see smooth persistence explicitly, the tame Sobolev product estimate gives $\Vert {\varphi }_t^2{\Vert }_{H^k}\le C_k\Vert {\varphi }_t{\Vert }_{\infty }\Vert {\varphi }_t{\Vert }_{H^k}$. Ordinary differentiated wave energy estimates therefore bound each higher derivative energy by its initial value times $\exp (C_k{\int }_0^t\Vert {\varphi }_t(s){\Vert }_{\infty }ds)$. This is finite on the interval already controlled by the base commuted wave energy; no separate ${\epsilon }_N$ is needed for each derivative order. ThereforeFor $\epsilon =0$ the zero solution is global. The same energy estimate in fact permits an exponential lower bound for the lifespan, which is stronger than any fixed inverse power.

The vector field ${\Omega }_{ij}=x_i{\partial }_j-x_j{\partial }_i$ is an infinitesimal spatial rotation. It commutes with the flat d'Alembert operator and supplies angular derivatives in the Klainerman-Sobolev inequality.

The vector field method commutes a wave equation with spacetime symmetry generators, estimates the resulting commuted wave energies, and converts weighted L2 norms to pointwise decay using a Klainerman-Sobolev inequality. The commutation vector fields for the wave equation include translations, rotations, Lorentz boost vector fields and the scaling vector field. It is useful for almost global existence for wave equations and for small-data global existence under the classical null condition for wave equations.