Carleman estimate for semi-discrete stochastic parabolic operators in arbitrary dimension and applications to controllability

Abstract: This paper considers a semi-discrete forward stochastic parabolic operator with homogeneous Dirichlet conditions in arbitrary dimensions. We show the lack of null controllability for a spatial semi-discretization of a null-controllable stochastic parabolic system from any initial datum. However, by proving a new Carleman estimate for its semi-discrete backward stochastic adjoint system, we achieve a relaxed observability inequality, which is applied to derivative $\phi$-null controllability by duality arguments.