Scattering threshold for the focusing nonlinear Klein-Gordon equation

Abstract

We show scattering versus blow-up dichotomy below the ground state energy for the focusing nonlinear Klein-Gordon equation, in the spirit of Kenig-Merle for the $H^1$ critical wave and Schrödinger equations. Our result includes the $H^1$ critical case, where the threshold is given by the ground state for the massless equation, and the 2D square-exponential case, where the mass for the ground state may be modified, depending on the constant in the sharp Trudinger-Moser inequality. The main difficulty is lack of scaling invariance both in the linear and nonlinear terms.

56 pages, no figure, minor corrections, to appear in Analysis & PDE