  Consider the Hamiltonian $abcd$ system in one dimension, with data posed in
the energy space $H^1\times H^1$. This model, introduced by Bona, Chen and
Saut, is a well-known physical generalization of the classical Boussinesq
equations. The Hamiltonian case corresponds to the regime where $a,c<0$ and
$b=d>0$. Under this regime, small solutions in the energy space are globally
defined. A first proof of decay for this $2\times 2$ system was given by the
two authors and Poblete and Pozo, in a strongly dispersive regime, i.e. under
essentially the conditions \[ b=d > \frac29, \quad a,c<-\frac1{18}. \]
Additionally, decay was obtained inside a proper subset of the light cone
$(-|t|,|t|)$. In this paper, we improve the last result in three directions.
First, we enlarge the set of parameters $(a,b,c,d)$ for which decay to zero is
the only available option, considering now the so-called weakly dispersive
regime $a,c\sim 0$: we prove decay if now \[ b=d > \frac3{16}, \quad
a,c<-\frac1{48}. \] This result is sharp in the case where $a=c$, since for
$a,c$ bigger, some $abcd$ linear waves of nonzero frequency do have zero group
velocity. Second, we sharply enlarge the interval of decay to consider the
whole light cone, that is to say, any interval of the form $|x|\sim |v|t$, for
any $|v|<1$. This result rules out, among other things, the existence of
nonzero speed solitary waves in the regime where decay is present. Finally, we
prove decay to zero of small $abcd$ solutions in exterior regions $|x|\gg |t|$,
also discarding super-luminical small solitary waves. These three results are
obtained by performing new improved virial estimates for which better decay
properties are deduced.
