Approximate controllability for linear degenerate parabolic problems with bilinear control
This provides a theoretical controllability result for a class of degenerate parabolic equations, which is an incremental advance in control theory for partial differential equations.
The paper proves global approximate multiplicative controllability for a linear degenerate parabolic problem with bilinear control, showing that any nonzero initial state can be steered into any neighborhood of any nonnegative target state using bilinear static controls.
In this work we study the global approximate multiplicative controllability for the linear degenerate parabolic Cauchy-Neumann problem $$ \{{array}{l} \displaystyle{v_t-(a(x) v_x)_x =α(t,x)v\,\,\qquad {in} \qquad Q_T \,=\,(0,T)\times(-1,1)} [2.5ex] \displaystyle{a(x)v_x(t,x)|_{x=\pm 1} = 0\,\,\qquad\qquad\qquad\,\, t\in (0,T)} [2.5ex] \displaystyle{v(0,x)=v_0 (x) \,\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\quad\,\, x\in (-1,1)}, {array}. $$ with the bilinear control $α(t,x)\in L^\infty (Q_T).$ The problem is strongly degenerate in the sense that $a\in C^1([-1,1]),$ positive on $(-1,1),$ is allowed to vanish at $\pm 1$ provided that a certain integrability condition is fulfilled. We will show that the above system can be steered in $L^2(Ω)$ from any nonzero, nonnegative initial state into any neighborhood of any desirable nonnegative target-state by bilinear static controls. Moreover, we extend the above result relaxing the sign constraint on $v_0$.