English

Approximate controllability of a bilinear wave equation and minimum time

Optimization and Control 2026-01-28 v1 Analysis of PDEs

Abstract

We study the global approximate controllability (GAC) of a Klein-Gordon wave equation, posed on the torus Td\mathbb{T}^d of arbitrary dimension dNd\in \mathbb{N}^*, with bilinear control potentials supported on the first (2d+1)(2d+1)-Fourier modes. Let Z(W0)TdZ(W_0)\subset \mathbb{T}^d be the set of essential zeroes of the initial state W0H1×L2(Td)W_0\in H^1\times L^2(\mathbb{T}^d), and r(W0)0r(W_0)\geq 0 be the maximum radius of a ball of Td\mathbb{T}^d contained in Z(W0)Z(W_0). Due to finite speed of propagation, the minimum control time starting from W0W_0 is necessarily larger than or equal to r(W0)r(W_0). We prove the following three facts. In low dimensions d{1,2}d \in \{1,2\}: the minimum time for GAC from W00W_0 \neq 0 is equal to r(W0)r(W_0). In any dimensions d3d\geq 3: the minimum time for GAC from W0W_0 is zero if Z(W0)Z(W_0) has zero Lebesgue measure; and the GAC in sufficiently large time from all W00W_0\neq 0. The proof strategy consists in combining Lie bracket techniques \emph{\`a la Agrachev-Sarychev} with the propagation of well-prepared positive states.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.19544,
  title  = {Approximate controllability of a bilinear wave equation and minimum time},
  author = {Karine Beauchard and Thomas Perrin and Eugenio Pozzoli},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.19544},
  year   = {2026}
}