Spectral boundary controllability of networks of strings

In this Note we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the spectral controllability from one simple node of a general network of strings that undergoes transversal vibrations in a sufficiently large time. This condition asserts that no eigenfunction vanishes identically on the string that contains the controlled node. The proof combines the Beurling–Malliavin's theorem and an asymptotic formula for the eigenvalues of the network. The optimal control time may be characterized as twice the sum of the lengths of all the strings of the network. To cite this article: R. Dáger, E. Zuazua, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 334 (2002) 545–550.     

Exceptional set of a representation with fractional powers

We prove that for any given c, 1 < c < 17/11, almost all natural numbers are representable in the form [x ^c] + [p ^c], where x is a natural number and p is a prime.     

The turnpike property in finite-dimensional nonlinear optimal control

Turnpike properties have been established long time ago in finite-dimensional optimal control problems arising in econometry. They refer to the fact that, under quite general assumptions, the optimal solutions of a given optimal control problem settled in large time consist approximately of three pieces, the first and the last of which being transient short-time arcs, and the middle piece being a long-time arc staying exponentially close to the optimal steady-state solution of an associated static optimal control problem. We provide in this paper a general version of a turnpike theorem, valuable for nonlinear dynamics without any specific assumption, and for very general terminal conditions. Not only the optimal trajectory is shown to remain exponentially close to a steady-state, but also the corresponding adjoint vector of the Pontryagin maximum principle. The exponential closedness is quantified with the use of appropriate normal forms of Riccati equations. We show then how the property on the adjoint vector can be adequately used in order to initialize successfully a numerical direct method, or a shooting method. In particular, we provide an appropriate variant of the usual shooting method in which we initialize the adjoint vector, not at the initial time, but at the middle of the trajectory.     

The rate at which energy decays in a damped String

The energy in a string subject to positive viscous damping is known to decay exponentially in time. Under the assumption that the damping is of bounded variation, we identify the best rate of decay with the supremum of the real part of the spectrum of the infinitesimal generator of the underlying semigroup. We analyze the spectrum of this nonselfadjoint operator in some detail. Our bounds on its real eigenvalues and asymptotic form of its large eigenvalues translate into criteria for over/underdamping and a proof that the decay rate achieves its (negative) minimum over those dampings whose total variation does not exceed a prescribed value.     

The asymptotic behaviour of the heat equation in a twisted Dirichlet-Neumann waveguide

We consider the heat equation in a straight strip, subject to a combination of Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. We show that a switch of the respective boundary conditions leads to an improvement of the decay rate of the heat semigroup of the order of t−1/2. The proof employs similarity variables that lead to a non-autonomous parabolic equation in a thin strip contracting to the real line, that can be analysed on weighted Sobolev spaces in which the operators under consideration have discrete spectra. A careful analysis of its asymptotic behaviour shows that an added Dirichlet boundary condition emerges asymptotically at the switching point, breaking the real line in two half-lines, which leads asymptotically to the 1/2 gain on the spectral lower bound, and the t−1/2 gain on the decay rate in the original physical variables.This result is an adaptation to the case of strips with twisted boundary conditions of previous results by the authors on geometrically twisted Dirichlet tubes.     

Polynomial decay and control of a 1−d hyperbolic-parabolic coupled system

In this paper we consider a linearized model for fluid-structure interaction in one space dimension. The domain where the system evolves consists in two parts in which the wave and heat equations evolve, respectively, with transmission conditions at the interface. First of all we develop a careful spectral asymptotic analysis on high frequencies for the underlying semigroup. It is shown that the semigroup governed by the system can be split into a parabolic and a hyperbolic projection. The dissipative mechanism of the system in the domain where the heat equation holds produces a slow decay of the hyperbolic component of solutions. According to this analysis we obtain sharp polynomial decay rates for the whole energy of smooth solutions. Next, we discuss the problem of null-controllability of the system when the control acts on the boundary of the domain where the heat equation holds. The key observability inequality of the dual system with observation on the heat component is derived though a new Ingham-type inequality, which in turn, thanks to our spectral analysis, is a consequence of a known observability inequality of the same system but with observation on the wave component.     

Some controllability results for the 2D Kolmogorov equation

In this article, we prove the null controllability of the 2D Kolmogorov equation both in the whole space and in the square. The control is a source term in the right-hand side of the equation, located on a subdomain, that acts linearly on the state. In the first case, it is the complementary of a strip with axis x and in the second one, it is a strip with axis x.The proof relies on two ingredients. The first one is an explicit decay rate for the Fourier components of the solution in the free system. The second one is an explicit bound for the cost of the null controllability of the heat equation with potential that the Fourier components solve. This bound is derived by means of a new Carleman inequality.     

On a Constrained Approximate Controllability Problem for the Heat Equation: Addendum

In this note, we clarify a technical point of Ref. 1, devoted to studying a constrained approximate controllability for the heat equation.     

High frequency wave packets for the Schrödinger equation and its numerical approximations

We build Gaussian wave packets for the linear Schrödinger equation and its finite difference space semi-discretization and illustrate the lack of uniform dispersive properties of the numerical solutions as established in Ignat and Zuazua (2009) [6]. It is by now well known that bigrid algorithms provide filtering mechanisms allowing to recover the uniformity of the dispersive properties as the mesh size goes to zero. We analyze and illustrate numerically how these high frequency wave packets split and propagate under these bigrid filtering mechanisms, depending on how the fine grid/coarse grid filtering is implemented.