Boundary controllability for a degenerate and singular wave equation

Abstract: In this paper, we deal with the boundary controllability of a one-dimensional degenerate and singular wave equation with degeneracy and singularity occurring at the boundary of the spatial domain. Exact boundary controllability is proved in the range of subcritical/critical potentials and for sufficiently large time, through a boundary controller acting away from the degenerate/singular point. By duality argument, we reduce the problem to an observability estimate for the corresponding adjoint system, which is proved by means of the multiplier method and a new special Hardy-type inequality.