Carleman estimates and null controllability for a degenerate population model

Abstract

We deal with a degenerate model describing the dynamics of a population depending on time, on age and on space. We assume that the degeneracy can occur at the boundary or in the interior of the space domain and we focus on null controllability problem. To this aim, we prove first Carleman estimates for the associated adjoint problem, then, via cut off functions, we prove the existence of a null control function localized in the interior of the space domain.