Global null-controllability and nonnegative-controllability of slightly superlinear heat equations (Q2296329)

This manuscript deals with semilinear heat equation posed on a bounded, connected, open domain \(\Omega\) of \(\mathbb{R}^N\) with Neumann boundary conditions \[ \left\{ \begin{array} {ll} \partial_t y-\triangle y+f(y)=h 1_w, & \mbox{in} \ Q_T=(0,T) \times \Omega, \\ \frac{\partial y}{\partial n}=0, & \mbox{on} \ (0,T) \times \partial\Omega, \\ y(0,\cdot)=y_0, & \mbox{in} \ \Omega, \end{array} \right.\tag{1} \] where the control input is a source term localized in some arbitrary nonempty open subset \(w\) of \(\Omega\). In addition, \(T >0\), \(n\) is the outer unit normal vector to \(\partial\Omega\) and \(f \in\mathcal{C}^1(\mathbb{R};\mathbb{R})\). Throughout the paper, the author assumes that \(f\) satisfies the restrictive growth condition \[ \exists \alpha >0, \ \frac{f(s)}{|s|\log^{\alpha}(1+|s|)} \rightarrow 0 \ \mbox{as} \ |s|\rightarrow +\infty. \] Besides using the concepts of global null-controllability and local null-controllability, the author introduces a new concept of controllability. System (1) is globally nonnegative-controllable (respectively globally nonpositive controllable) in time \(T\) if for every \(y_0 \in L^{\infty}(\Omega)\), there exists \(h \in L^{\infty}(Q_T)\) such that the solution \(y\) of (1) satisfies \(y(T,\cdot) \geq 0\) (respectively \(y(T,\cdot) \leq 0\)). The first main result of this paper is a small-time global nonnegative-controllability result for (1) and the second one is a large-time global null-controllability result also for (1). All the results of this paper stay valid for Dirichlet boundary conditions, as the author comments in the last section.