On the small-time bilinear control of a nonlinear heat equation: global approximate controllability and exact controllability to trajectories

Abstract: In this work we analyse the small-time reachability properties of a nonlinear parabolic equation, by means of a bilinear control, posed on a torus of arbitrary dimension $d$. Under a saturation hypothesis on the control operators, we show the small-time approximate controllability between states sharing the same sign. Moreover, in the one-dimensional case $d=1$, we combine this property with a local exact controllability result, and prove the small-time exact controllability of any positive states towards the ground state of the evolution operator.