Analysis of optimal control problems of semilinear elliptic equations by BV-functions

Optimal control problems for semilinear elliptic equations with control costs in the space of bounded variations are analysed. BV-based optimal controls favor piecewise constant, and hence ’simple’ controls, with few jumps. Existence of optimal controls, necessary and sufficient optimality conditions of first and second order are analysed. Special attention is paid on the effect of the choice of the vector norm in the definition of the BV-seminorm for the optimal primal and adjoined variables.The first author was partially supported by Spanish Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad under research projects MTM2014-57531-P and MTM2017-83185-P. The second was partially supported by the ERC advanced grant 668998 (OCLOC) under the EUs H2020 research program