SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, Vol.54, No.3, 1295-1328, 2016
A SPACE-TIME FRACTIONAL OPTIMAL CONTROL PROBLEM: ANALYSIS AND DISCRETIZATION
We study a linear-quadratic optimal control problem involving a parabolic equation with fractional diffusion and Caputo fractional time derivative of orders s is an element of (0, 1) and gamma is an element of (0, 1], respectively. The spatial fractional diffusion is realized as the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map for a nonuniformly elliptic operator. Thus, we consider an equivalent formulation with a quasi-stationary elliptic problem with a dynamic boundary condition as state equation. The rapid decay of the solution to this problem suggests a truncation that is suitable for numerical approximation. We consider a fully discrete scheme: piecewise constant functions for the control and, for the state, first-degree tensor product finite elements in space and a finite difference discretization in time. We show convergence of this scheme and, under additional data regularity, derive a priori error estimates for the case s is an element of (0, 1) and gamma = 1.
Keywords:linear-quadratic optimal control problem;fractional derivatives and integrals;fractional diffusion;weighted Sobolev spaces;finite elements;stability;fully discrete methods