Decay estimates for a thermoelastic system in waveguides

We investigate the linear system of thermoelasticity, consisting of an elasticity equation and a heat conduction equation, in a waveguide Ω=(0,1)×Rn−1, with certain boundary conditions. We consider the cases of homogeneous and inhomogeneous systems and prove decay estimates of the solutions, which are a key ingredient to showing the global existence of solutions to non-linear thermoelasticity, after having decomposed the solutions into various parts. We also give a simplified proof to the representation of the solutions to the Cauchy problem of thermoelasticity.