Carleman estimate and null controllability for a degenerate parabolic equation with a slightly superlinear reaction term (Q6095313)

This paper proves the null controllability of the following degenerate parabolic equation: \[ u_t - (x^\alpha u_x)_x + p(t,x,u) = h \chi_\omega \text{ in } (0, 1) \times (0, T), \] with \(0 < \alpha < \frac{1}{2}\) and \(p\) a Lipschitz continuous function with respect to \(u\) satisfying a growth condition at infinity similar to the one encountered in the case of the null-controllability of the semi-linear heat equation by the means of the distributed control \(h\). The idea of the proof is to show that a uniform Carleman estimate holds for a regularized dual equation. This Carleman estimate implies an observability inequality for the linear regularized dual equation which holds uniformly with respect to the regularization parameter. Finally, the null controllability of the non-linear degenerate equation follows by applying Kakutani fixed point theorem.