An obstruction to small time local null controllability for a viscous Burgers' equation

Abstract: In this work, we are interested in the small time local null controllability for the viscous Burgers' equation $y_t - y_{xx} + y y_x = u(t)$ on the line segment $[0,1]$, with null boundary conditions. The second-hand side is a scalar control playing a role similar to that of a pressure. In this setting, the classical Lie bracket necessary condition $[f_1,[f_1,f_0]]$ introduced by Sussmann fails to conclude. However, using a quadratic expansion of our system, we exhibit a second order obstruction to small time local null controllability. This obstruction holds although the information propagation speed is infinite for the Burgers equation. Our obstruction involves the weak $H^{-5/4}$ norm of the control $u$. The proof requires the careful derivation of an integral kernel operator and the estimation of residues by means of weakly singular integral operator estimates.