Boundary controllability of the Korteweg-de Vries equation: The Neumann case

Abstract

This article gives a necessary first step to understanding the critical set phenomenon for the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation posed on interval $[0,L]$ considering the Neumann boundary conditions with only one control input. We showed that the KdV equation is controllable in the critical case, i.e., when the spatial domain $L$ belongs to the set $\mathcal{R}_c$, where $c\neq-1$ and $$ \mathcal{R}_c:=\left\{\frac{2\pi}{\sqrt{3(c+1)}}\sqrt{m^2+ml+m^2};\ m,l\in \mathbb{N}^*\right\}\cup\left\{\frac{m\pi}{\sqrt{c+1}};\ m\in \mathbb{N}^*\right\}, $$ the KdV equation is exactly controllable in $L^2(0,L)$. The result is achieved using the return method together with a fixed point argument.