In this paper we study a Cauchy problem for the nonlinear damped
wave equations for a general positive operator with discrete spectrum. We derive
the exponential in time decay of solutions to the linear problem with decay rate
depending on the interplay between the bottom of the operator’s spectrum and
the mass term. Consequently, we prove global in time well-posedness results for
semilinear and for more general nonlinear equations with small data. Examples
are given for nonlinear damped wave equations for the harmonic oscillator, for
the twisted Laplacian (Landau Hamiltonian), and for the Laplacians on compact
manifolds.