Energy decay rates of solutions to a viscoelastic wave equation with variable exponents and weak damping

The goal of the present paper is to study the asymptotic behavior of solutions for the viscoelastic wave equation with variable exponents $$u_{tt}-\Delta u+\int_0^tg(t-s)\Delta u(s)ds+a|u_t|^{m(x)-2}u_t=b|u|^{p(x)-2}u$$ under initial-boundary condition, where the exponents $p(x)$ and $m(x)$ are given functions, and $a,~b>0$ are constants. More precisely, under the condition $g'(t)\le -\xi(t)g(t)$, here $\xi(t):\mathbb{R}^+\to\mathbb{R}^+$ is a non-increasing differential function with $\xi(0)>0,~\int_0^\infty\xi(s)ds=+\infty$, general decay results are derived. In addition, when $g$ decays polynomially, the exponential and polynomial decay rates are obtained as well, respectively. This work generalizes and improves earlier results in the literature.