Boundary control for optimal mixing by two-dimensional second-grade fluids

Abstract: We study optimal boundary mixing of a nondiffusive scalar transported by a two-dimensional incompressible second-grade fluid. The control is the tangential traction in a Navier-slip boundary condition, and the principal objective is the terminal $(H<sup>1(Ω))&#39;$ mix-norm, supplemented by a quadratic control cost and an optional enstrophy reward. The second-grade constitutive law introduces a spatially filtered acceleration and a generalized vorticity; after lifting the nonhomogeneous boundary data, both $\mathbf{g}$ and $\partial_t\mathbf{g}$ enter the state equation, where $\mathbf{g}$ is the boundary control variable. We prove global state well-posedness for a passive scalar and well-posedness on a common, control-independent local interval for an active scalar. We then establish existence of an optimal control, directional differentiability of the control-to-state map in the topology required by the terminal objective, and a weak backward adjoint formulation. A duality identity yields the first-order variational inequality. In the absence of the friction coefficient $β$ and enstrophy reward weight $ζ$ (that is, $β=ζ=0$), the additional adjoint regularity implies uniqueness of the optimal control for all sufficiently large control penalties $γ$.