Global exact controllability of the viscous and resistive MHD system in a rectangle thanks to the lateral sides and to distributed phantom forces

Abstract

We consider the 2-D incompressible viscous and resistive magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) system in a rectangle, with controls on the lateral sides. The velocity satisfies Dirichlet boundary conditions, while the magnetic field follows perfectly conducting wall boundary conditions on the remaining, uncontrolled part of the boundary. We extend the small-time global exact null controllability result of Coron et al. in [Ann PDE 5(2):1-49, 2019] from Navier-Stokes equations to MHD equations, with a little help of distributed phantom forces, which can be chosen arbitrarily small in any given Sobolev spaces. Our analysis relies on Coron’s return method, the well-prepared dissipation method, long-time nonlinear Cauchy-Kovalevskaya estimates and Badra’s local exact controllability result.