Singular and rarefactive solutions to a nonlinear variational wave equation

Following a recent paper of the authors in Communications in Partial Differential Equations, this paper establishes the global existence of weak solutions to a nonlinear variational wave equation under relaxed conditions on the initial data so that the solutions can contain singularities (blow-up). Propagation of local oscillations along one family of characteristics remains under control despite singularity formation in the other family of characteristics.