In this paper sufficient second order optimality conditions for optimal control problems subject to stationary variational inequalities of obstacle type are derived. Since optimality conditions for such problems always involve measures as Lagrange multipliers, which impede the use of efficient Newton type methods, a family of regularized problems is introduced. Second order sufficient optimality conditions are derived for the regularized problems as well. It is further shown that these conditions are also sufficient for superlinear convergence of the semi-smooth Newton algorithm to be well-defined and superlinearly convergent when applied to the first order optimality system associated with the regularized problems.

We study integral functionals constrained to divergence-free vector fields in Lp on a thin domain, under standard p-growth and coercivity assumptions, 1 < p < ∞. We prove that as the thickness of the domain goes to zero, the Gamma-limit with respect to weak convergence in Lp is always given by the associated functional with convexified energy density wherever it is finite. Remarkably, this happens despite the fact that relaxation of nonconvex functionals subject to the limiting constraint can give rise to a nonlocal functional as illustrated in an example.

In this article we derive a macroscopic model for the time evolution of root density, starting from a discrete mesh of roots, using homogenization techniques. In the microscopic model each root grows vertically according to an ordinary differential equation. The roots growth rates depend on the spatial distribution of nutrient in the soil, which also evolves in time, leading to a fully coupled non-linear problem. We derive an effective partial differential equation for the root tip surface and for the nutrient density.

We study the initial value problem for the drift-diffusion model arising in semiconductor device simulation and plasma physics. We show that the corresponding stationary problem in the whole space ℝn admits a unique stationary solution in a general situation. Moreover, it is proved that when n ≥ 3, a unique solution to the initial value problem exists globally in time and converges to the corresponding stationary solution as time tends to infinity, provided that the amplitude of the stationary solution and the initial perturbation are suitably small. Also, we show the sharp decay estimate for the perturbation. The stability proof is based on the time weighted Lp energy method.

This article considers the linear 1-d Schrödinger equation in (0,π) perturbed by a vanishing viscosity term depending on a small parameter ε > 0. We study the boundary controllability properties of this perturbed equation and the behavior of its boundary controls vε as ε goes to zero. It is shown that, for any time T sufficiently large but independent of ε and for each initial datum in H−1(0,π), there exists a uniformly bounded family of controls (vε)ε in L2(0, T) acting on the extremity x = π. Any weak limit of this family is a control for the Schrödinger equation.

We study in an abstract setting the indirect stabilization of systems of two wave-like equations coupled by a localized zero order term. Only one of the two equations is directly damped. The main novelty in this paper is that the coupling operator is not assumed to be coercive in the underlying space. We show that the energy of smooth solutions of these systems decays polynomially at infinity, whereas it is known that exponential stability does not hold (see [F. Alabau, P. Cannarsa and V. Komornik, J. Evol. Equ. 2 (2002) 127–150]). We give applications of our result to locally or boundary damped wave or plate systems. In any space dimension, we prove polynomial stability under geometric conditions on both the coupling and the damping regions. In one space dimension, the result holds for arbitrary non-empty open damping and coupling regions, and in particular when these two regions have an empty intersection. Hence, indirect polynomial stability holds even though the feedback is active in a region in which the coupling vanishes and vice versa.

We examine shape optimization problems in the context of inexact sequential quadratic programming. Inexactness is a consequence of using adaptive finite element methods (AFEM) to approximate the state and adjoint equations (via the dual weighted residual method), update the boundary, and compute the geometric functional. We present a novel algorithm that equidistributes the errors due to shape optimization and discretization, thereby leading to coarse resolution in the early stages and fine resolution upon convergence, and thus optimizing the computational effort. We discuss the ability of the algorithm to detect whether or not geometric singularities such as corners are genuine to the problem or simply due to lack of resolution – a new paradigm in adaptivity.

The “freezing” method for ordinary differential equations is extended to multivariable retarded systems with distributed delays and slowly varying coefficients. Explicit stability conditions are derived. The main tool of the paper is a combined usage of the generalized Bohl-Perron principle and norm estimates for the fundamental solutions of the considered equations.

In this paper, we study the one-dimensional wave equation with Boltzmann damping. Two different Boltzmann integrals that represent the memory of materials are considered. The spectral properties for both cases are thoroughly analyzed. It is found that when the memory of system is counted from the infinity, the spectrum of system contains a left half complex plane, which is sharp contrast to the most results in elastic vibration systems that the vibrating dynamics can be considered from the vibration frequency point of view. This suggests us to investigate the system with memory counted from the vibrating starting moment. In the latter case, it is shown that the spectrum of system determines completely the dynamic behavior of the vibration: there is a sequence of generalized eigenfunctions of the system, which forms a Riesz basis for the state space. As the consequences, the spectrum-determined growth condition and exponential stability are concluded. The results of this paper expositorily demonstrate the proper modeling the elastic systems with Boltzmann damping.

We consider quasilinear optimal control problems involving a thick two-level junction Ωε which consists of the junction body Ω0 and a large number of thin cylinders with the cross-section of order 𝒪(ε2). The thin cylinders are divided into two levels depending on the geometrical characteristics, the quasilinear boundary conditions and controls given on their lateral surfaces and bases respectively. In addition, the quasilinear boundary conditions depend on parameters ε, α, β and the thin cylinders from each level are ε-periodically alternated. Using the Buttazzo–Dal Maso abstract scheme for variational convergence of constrained minimization problems, the asymptotic analysis (as ε → 0) of these problems are made for different values of α and β and different kinds of controls. We have showed that there are three qualitatively different cases. Application for an optimal control problem involving a thick one-level junction with cascade controls is presented as well.

In this paper we investigate analytic affine control systems \hbox{$\dot{q}$}q̇ = X + uY, u ∈  [a,b] , where X,Y is an orthonormal frame for a generalized Martinet sub-Lorentzian structure of order k of Hamiltonian type. We construct normal forms for such systems and, among other things, we study the connection between the presence of the singular trajectory starting at q0 on the boundary of the reachable set from q0 with the minimal number of analytic functions needed for describing the reachable set from q0.

We discuss a variational problem defined on couples of functions that are constrained to take values into the 2-dimensional unit sphere. The energy functional contains, besides standard Dirichlet energies, a non-local interaction term that depends on the distance between the gradients of the two functions. Different gradients are preferred or penalized in this model, in dependence of the sign of the interaction term. In this paper we study the lower semicontinuity and the coercivity of the energy and we find an explicit representation formula for the relaxed energy. Moreover, we discuss the behavior of the energy in the case when we consider multifunctions with two leaves rather than couples of functions.

We discuss several new results on nonnegative approximate controllability for the one-dimensional Heat equation governed by either multiplicative or nonnegative additive control, acting within a proper subset of the space domain at every moment of time. Our methods allow us to link these two types of controls to some extend. The main results include approximate controllability properties both for the static and mobile control supports.