Null-controllability properties of the wave equation with a second order memory term (Q2631733)

In the present paper, the authors investigate controllability of a wave equation with memory. The equation is defined on the one dimensional torus. Since the equation is defined on a torus, there is no need to specify the boundary conditions as they will be periodic automatically. The control is assumed to act on an open subset, which is moving with a contant velocity. The technique used in this work is based on spectral analysis and explicit construction of biorthogonal sequences. The characterization of the control problem through the adjoint equation is discussed followed by compplete spectral analysis. Moreover, the authors discuss the necessity of a moving control, based on a geometric optics analysis of our equation which is quite interesting.