Open-loop stabilizability of infinite-dimensional systems

In this paper we study open-loop stabilizability, a general notion of stabilizability for linear differential equations\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} $$\dot x$$ \end{document}=Ax+Bu in an infinite-dimensional state space. This notion is sufficiently general to be implied by exact controllability, by optimizability, and by various general definitions of closedloop stabilizability. Here,A is the generator of a strongly continuous semigroup, and we make very few a priori restrictions on the class of controlsu. Our results hinge upon the control operatorB being smoothly left-invertible, which is a very mild restriction when the input space is finite-dimensional. Since open-loop stabilizability is a weak concept, lack of open-loop stability is quites strong. A focus of this paper is to give necessary conditions for open-loop stabilizability, thus identifying classes of systems which are not open-loops stabilizable.