Delio Mugnolo – författare

This book presents novel results by participants of the conference “Control theory of infinite-dimensional systems” that took place in January 2018 at the FernUniversität in Hagen. Topics include well-posedness, controllability, optimal control problems as well as stability of linear and nonlinear systems, and are covered by world-leading experts in these areas.

This book contains contributions from the participants of the research group hosted by the ZiF - Center for Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Bielefeld during the period 2013-2017 as well as from the conclusive conference organized at Bielefeld in December 2017. The contributions consist of original research papers: they mirror the scientific developments fostered by this research program or the state-of-the-art results presented during the conclusive conference.

This concise text is based on a series of lectures held only a few years ago and originally intended as an introduction to known results on linear hyperbolic and parabolic equations. Yet the topic of differential equations on graphs, ramified spaces, and more general network-like objects has recently gained significant momentum and, well beyond the confines of mathematics, there is a lively interdisciplinary discourse on all aspects of so-called complex networks. Such network-like structures can be found in virtually all branches of science, engineering and the humanities, and future research thus calls for solid theoretical foundations.

This book is specifically devoted to the study of evolution equations – i.e., of time-dependent differential equations such as the heat equation, the wave equation, or the Schrödinger equation (quantum graphs) – bearing in mind that the majority of the literature in the last ten years on the subject of differential equations of graphs has beendevoted to elliptic equations and related spectral problems. Moreover, for tackling the most general settings - e.g. encoded in the transmission conditions in the network nodes - one classical and elegant tool is that of operator semigroups. This book is simultaneously a very concise introduction to this theory and a handbook on its applications to differential equations on networks.With a more interdisciplinary readership in mind, full proofs of mathematical statements have been frequently omitted in favor of keeping the text as concise, fluid and self-contained as possible. In addition, a brief chapter devoted to the field of neurodynamics of the brain cortex provides a concrete link to ongoing applied research.