Orbital stability of standing waves for semilinear wave equations with indefinite energy

The orbital stability of standing waves for semilinear wave equations is studied in the case that the energy is indefinite and the underlying space domain is bounded or a compact manifold or whole Rn with n⩾2. The stability is determined by the convexity on ω of the lowest energy d(ω) of standing waves with frequency ω. The arguments rely on the conservation of energy and charge and the construction of suitable invariant manifolds of solution flows.