Blow-up results for semilinear damped wave equations in Einstein–de Sitter spacetime

We prove by using an iteration argument some blow-up results for a semilinear damped wave equation in generalized Einstein–de Sitter spacetime with a time-dependent coefficient for the damping term and power nonlinearity. Then, we conjecture an expression for the critical exponent due to the main blow-up results, which is consistent with many special cases of the considered model and provides a natural generalization of Strauss exponent. In the critical case, we consider a non-autonomous and parameter dependent Cauchy problem for a linear ODE of second order, whose explicit solutions are determined by means of special functions’ theory.