On a thermoelastic plate equation in an exterior domain

Obtained are the existence of solutions and the local energy decay of a linear thermoelastic plate equation in a 3 dim. exterior domain. The thermoplate equation is formulated as a Sobolev equation in the abstract framework. Our proof of the existence theorem is based on an argument due to Goldstein (Semigroups of Linear Operators and Applications. Oxford University Press: New York, 1985). To obtain the local energy decay, we use the commutation method in order to treat the high‐frequency part and a precise expansion of the resolvent operator obtained by constructing the parametrix in order to treat the low‐frequency. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.