Localized solutions for the finite difference semi-discretization of the wave equation

We study the propagation properties of the solutions of the finite-difference space semi-discrete wave equation on an uniform grid of the whole Euclidean space. We provide a construction of high frequency wave packets that propagate along the corresponding bi-characteristic rays of Geometric Optics with a group velocity arbitrarily close to zero. Our analysis is motivated by control theoretical issues. In particular, the continuous wave equation has the so-called observability property: for a sufficiently large time, the total energy of its solutions can be estimated in terms of the energy concentrated in the exterior of a compact set. This fails to be true, uniformly on the mesh-size parameter, for the semi-discrete schemes and the observability constant blows-up at an arbitrarily large polynomial order. Our contribution consists in providing a rigorous derivation of those wave packets and in analyzing their behavior near that ray, by taking into account the subtle added dispersive effects that the numerical scheme introduces.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

Weak observability estimates for 1-D wave equations with rough coefficients

In this paper we prove observability estimates for 1-dimensional wave equations with non-Lipschitz coefficients. For coefficients in the Zygmund class we prove a "classical" observability estimate, which extends the well-known observability results in the energy space for $BV$ regularity. When the coefficients are instead log-Lipschitz or log-Zygmund, we prove observability estimates "with loss of derivatives": in order to estimate the total energy of the solutions, we need measurements on some higher order Sobolev norms at the boundary. This last result represents the intermediate step between the Lipschitz (or Zygmund) case, when observability estimates hold in the energy space, and the H\"older one, when they fail at any finite order (as proved in \cite{Castro-Z}) due to an infinite loss of derivatives. We also establish a sharp relation between the modulus of continuity of the coefficients and the loss of derivatives in the observability estimates. In particular, we will show that under any condition which is weaker than the log-Lipschitz one (not only H\"older, for instance), observability estimates fail in general, while in the intermediate instance between the Lipschitz and the log-Lipschitz ones they can hold only admitting a loss of a finite number of derivatives. This classification has an exact counterpart when considering also the second variation of the coefficients.Comment: submitte

The turnpike property in finite-dimensional nonlinear optimal control

Turnpike properties have been established long time ago in finite-dimensional optimal control problems arising in econometry. They refer to the fact that, under quite general assumptions, the optimal solutions of a given optimal control problem settled in large time consist approximately of three pieces, the first and the last of which being transient short-time arcs, and the middle piece being a long-time arc staying exponentially close to the optimal steady-state solution of an associated static optimal control problem. We provide in this paper a general version of a turnpike theorem, valuable for nonlinear dynamics without any specific assumption, and for very general terminal conditions. Not only the optimal trajectory is shown to remain exponentially close to a steady-state, but also the corresponding adjoint vector of the Pontryagin maximum principle. The exponential closedness is quantified with the use of appropriate normal forms of Riccati equations. We show then how the property on the adjoint vector can be adequately used in order to initialize successfully a numerical direct method, or a shooting method. In particular, we provide an appropriate variant of the usual shooting method in which we initialize the adjoint vector, not at the initial time, but at the middle of the trajectory

The asymptotic behaviour of the heat equation in a twisted Dirichlet-Neumann waveguide

We consider the heat equation in a straight strip, subject to a combination of Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. We show that a switch of the respective boundary conditions leads to an improvement of the decay rate of the heat semigroup of the order of $t^{-1/2}$. The proof employs similarity variables that lead to a non-autonomous parabolic equation in a thin strip contracting to the real line, that can be analyzed on weighted Sobolev spaces in which the operators under consideration have discrete spectra. A careful analysis of its asymptotic behaviour shows that an added Dirichlet boundary condition emerges asymptotically at the switching point, breaking the real line in two half-lines, which leads asymptotically to the 1/2 gain on the spectral lower bound, and the $t^{-1/2}$ gain on the decay rate in the original physical variables. This result is an adaptation to the case of strips with twisted boundary conditions of previous results by the authors on geometrically twisted Dirichlet tubes.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Convergence rates for dispersive approximation schemes to nonlinear Schr\"odinger equations

This article is devoted to the analysis of the convergence rates of several nu- merical approximation schemes for linear and nonlinear Schr\"odinger equations on the real line. Recently, the authors have introduced viscous and two-grid numerical approximation schemes that mimic at the discrete level the so-called Strichartz dispersive estimates of the continuous Schr\"odinger equation. This allows to guarantee the convergence of numerical approximations for initial data in L2(R), a fact that can not be proved in the nonlinear setting for standard conservative schemes unless more regularity of the initial data is assumed. In the present article we obtain explicit convergence rates and prove that dispersive schemes fulfilling the Strichartz estimates are better behaved for Hs(R) data if 0 < s < 1/2. Indeed, while dispersive schemes ensure a polynomial convergence rate, non-dispersive ones only yield logarithmic decay rates

Lipschitz dependence of the coefficients on the resolvent and greedy approximation for scalar elliptic problems

We analyze the inverse problem of identifying the diffusivity coefficient of a scalar elliptic equation as a function of the resolvent operator. We prove that, within the class of measurable coefficients, bounded above and below by positive constants, the resolvent determines the diffusivity in an unique manner. Furthermore we prove that the inverse mapping from resolvent to the coefficient is Lipschitz in suitable topologies. This result plays a key role when applying greedy algorithms to the approximation of parameter-dependent elliptic problems in an uniform and robust manner, independent of the given source terms. In one space dimension the results can be improved using the explicit expression of solutions, which allows to link distances between one resolvent and a linear combination of finitely many others and the corresponding distances on coefficients. These results are also extended to multi-dimensional elliptic equations with variable density coefficients. We also point out towards some possible extensions and open problems

Localized solutions and filtering mechanisms for the discontinuous Galerkin semi-discretizations of the 1-d wave equation

We perform a complete Fourier analysis of the semi-discrete 1-d wave equation obtained through a P1 discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximation of the continuous wave equation on an uniform grid. The resulting system exhibits the interaction of two types of components: a physical one and a spurious one, related to the possible discontinuities that the numerical solution allows. Each dispersion relation contains critical points where the corresponding group velocity vanishes. Following previous constructions, we rigorously build wave packets with arbitrarily small velocity of propagation concentrated either on the physical or on the spurious component. We also develop filtering mechanisms aimed at recovering the uniform velocity of propagation of the continuous solutions. Finally, some applications to numerical approximation issues of control problems are also presented.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

High frequency wave packets for the Schr\"odinger equation and its numerical approximations

We build Gaussian wave packets for the linear Schr\"odinger equation and its finite difference space semi-discretization and illustrate the lack of uniform dispersive properties of the numerical solutions as established in Ignat, Zuazua, Numerical dispersive schemes for the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, SIAM. J. Numer. Anal., 47(2) (2009), 1366-1390. It is by now well known that bigrid algorithms provide filtering mechanisms allowing to recover the uniformity of the dispersive properties as the mesh size goes to zero. We analyze and illustrate numerically how these high frequency wave packets split and propagate under these bigrid filtering mechanisms, depending on how the fine grid/coarse grid filtering is implemented.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Null Controllability for Wave Equations with Memory

We study the memory-type null controllability property for wave equations involving memory terms. The goal is not only to drive the displacement and the velocity (of the considered wave) to rest at some time-instant but also to require the memory term to vanish at the same time, ensuring that the whole process reaches the equilibrium. This memory-type null controllability problem can be reduced to the classical null controllability property for a coupled PDE-ODE system. The later is viewed as a degenerate system of wave equations, the velocity of propagation for the ODE component vanishing. This fact requires the support of the control to move to ensure the memory-type null controllability to hold, under the so-called Moving Geometric Control Condition. The control result is proved by duality by means of an observability inequality which employs measurements that are done on a moving observation open subset of the domain where the waves propagate