On the existence of optimal control for semilinear elliptic equations with nonlinear Neumann boundary conditions (Q2360795)

The article is devoted to an optimal control problem governed by a class of semilinear elliptic equations with nonlinear Neumann boundary conditions. It is pointed out that the cost functional considered may not be convex. The purpose of the paper is to prove the existence of an optimal control under the different conditions. To prove this results, a relaxation method is used. Namely, the optimal relaxed control problem corresponding to the initial (classical) control problem is firstly considered. The existence and the maximum principle for the optimal relaxed control are given and analyzed. Then, the existence of optimal controls is obtained by proving that the support of an optimal relaxed control is a singleton almost everywhere.