Newton's second law with a semiconvex potential

Abstract

We make the elementary observation that the differential equation associated with Newton's second law $m\ddot\gamma(t)=-D V(\gamma(t))$ always has a solution for given initial conditions provided that the potential energy $V$ is semiconvex. That is, if $-D V$ satisfies a one-sided Lipschitz condition. We will then build upon this idea to verify the existence of solutions for the Jeans-Vlasov equation, the pressureless Euler equations in one spatial dimension and the equations of elastodynamics under appropriate semiconvexity assumptions.