Controllability of a class of heat equations with memory in one dimension

This paper addresses a study of the controllability for a class of heat equations with memory in one spacial dimension. Unlike the classical heat equation, a heat equation with memory in general is not null controllable. There always exists a set of initial values such that the property of the null controllability fails. Also, one does not know whether there are nontrivial initial values, which can be driven to zero with a boundary control. In this paper, we give a characterization of the set of such nontrivial initial values. On the other hand, if a moving control is imposed on this system with memory, we prove the null controllability of it in a suitable state space for any initial value. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.