Null controllability of strongly degenerate parabolic equations

Abstract

We consider linear one-dimensional strongly degenerate parabolic equations with measurable coefficients that may be degenerate or singular. Taking 0 as the point where the strong degeneracy occurs, we assume that the coefficient a = a(x) in the principal part of the parabolic equation is such that the function x → x/a(x) is in Lp(0,1) for some p > 1. After establishing some spectral estimates for the corresponding elliptic problem, we prove that the parabolic equation is null controllable in the energy space by using one boundary control.