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Now showing 1 - 10 of 15
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    Sparse optimal control of a phase field system with singular potentials arising in the modeling of tumor growth
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2020) Sprekels, Jürgen; Tröltzsch, Fredi
    In this paper, we study an optimal control problem for a nonlinear system of reaction-diffusion equations that constitutes a simplified and relaxed version of a thermodynamically consistent phase field model for tumor growth originally introduced in [13]. The model takes the effect of chemotaxis into account but neglects velocity contributions. The unknown quantities of the governing state equations are the chemical potential, the (normalized) tumor fraction, and the nutrient extra-cellular water concentration. The equation governing the evolution of the tumor fraction is dominated by the variational derivative of a double-well potential which may be of singular (e.g., logarithmic) type. In contrast to the recent paper [10] on the same system, we consider in this paper sparsity effects, which means that the cost functional contains a nondifferentiable (but convex) contribution like the L1-norm. For such problems, we derive first-order necessary optimality conditions and conditions for directional sparsity, both with respect to space and time, where the latter case is of particular interest for practical medical applications in which the control variables are given by the administration of cytotoxic drugs or by the supply of nutrients. In addition to these results, we prove that the corresponding control-to-state operator is twice continuously differentiable between suitable Banach spaces, using the implicit function theorem. This result, which complements and sharpens a differentiability result derived in [10], constitutes a prerequisite for a future derivation of second-order sufficient optimality conditions.
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    Well-posedness and regularity for a fractional tumor growth model
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2019) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In this paper, we study a system of three evolutionary operator equations involving fractional powers of selfadjoint, monotone, unbounded, linear operators having compact resolvents. This system constitutes a generalization of a phase field system of Cahn--Hilliard type modelling tumor growth that has been proposed in Hawkins-Daarud et al. (Int. J. Numer. Math. Biomed. Eng. 28 (2012), 3--24) and investigated in recent papers co-authored by the present authors and E. Rocca. The model consists of a Cahn--Hilliard equation for the tumor cell fraction φ, coupled to a reaction-diffusion equation for a function S representing the nutrient-rich extracellular water volume fraction. Effects due to fluid motion are neglected. The generalization investigated in this paper is motivated by the possibility that the diffusional regimes governing the evolution of the different constituents of the model may be of different (e.g., fractional) type. Under rather general assumptions, well-posedness and regularity results are shown. In particular, by writing the equation governing the evolution of the chemical potential in the form of a general variational inequality, also singular or nonsmooth constributions of logarithmic or of double obstacle type to the energy density can be admitted.
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    Optimal control problems with sparsity for phase field tumor growth models involving variational inequalities
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2021) Colli, Pierluigi; Signori, Andrea; Sprekels, Jürgen
    This paper treats a distributed optimal control problem for a tumor growth model of Cahn--Hilliard type including chemotaxis. The evolution of the tumor fraction is governed by a variational inequality corresponding to a double obstacle nonlinearity occurring in the associated potential. In addition, the control and state variables are nonlinearly coupled and, furthermore, the cost functional contains a nondifferentiable term like the $L^1$--norm in order to include sparsity effects which is of utmost relevance, especially time sparsity, in the context of cancer therapies as applying a control to the system reflects in exposing the patient to an intensive medical treatment. To cope with the difficulties originating from the variational inequality in the state system, we employ the so-called ``deep quench approximation'' in which the convex part of the double obstacle potential is approximated by logarithmic functions. For such functions, first-order necessary conditions of optimality can be established by invoking recent results. We use these results to derive corresponding optimality conditions also for the double obstacle case, by deducing a variational inequality in terms of the associated adjoint state variables. The resulting variational inequality can be exploited to also obtain sparsity results for the optimal controls.
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    Analysis and optimal control theory for a phase field model of Caginalp type with thermal memory
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2021) Colli, Pierluigi; Signori, Andrea; Sprekels, Jürgen
    A nonlinear extension of the Caginalp phase field system is considered that takes thermal memory into account. The resulting model, which is a first-order approximation of a thermodynamically consistent system, is inspired by the theories developed by Green and Naghdi. Two equations, resulting from phase dynamics and the universal balance law for internal energy, are written in terms of the phase variable (representing a non-conserved order parameter) and the so-called thermal displacement, i.e., a primitive with respect to time of temperature. Existence and continuous dependence results are shown for weak and strong solutions to the corresponding initial-boundary value problem. Then, an optimal control problem is investigated for a suitable cost functional, in which two data act as controls, namely, the distributed heat source and the initial temperature. Fréchet differentiability between suitable Banach spaces is shown for the control-to-state operator, and meaningful first-order necessary optimality conditions are derived in terms of variational inequalities involving the adjoint variables. Eventually, characterizations of the optimal controls are given.
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    Optimal control of a phase field system of Caginalp type with fractional operators
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2020) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In their recent work ``Well-posedness, regularity and asymptotic analyses for a fractional phase field system'' (Asymptot. Anal. 114 (2019), 93--128), two of the present authors have studied phase field systems of Caginalp type, which model nonconserved, nonisothermal phase transitions and in which the occurring diffusional operators are given by fractional versions in the spectral sense of unbounded, monotone, selfadjoint, linear operators having compact resolvents. In this paper, we complement this analysis by investigating distributed optimal control problems for such systems. It is shown that the associated control-to-state operator is Fréchet differentiable between suitable Banach spaces, and meaningful first-order necessary optimality conditions are derived in terms of a variational inequality and the associated adjoint state variables.
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    An asymptotic analysis for a generalized Cahn--Hilliard system with fractional operators
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2020) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In a recent paper the same authors have proved existence, uniqueness and regularity results for a class of viscous and nonviscous Cahn--Hilliard systems of two operator equations in which nonlinearities of double-well type, like regular or logarithmic potentials, as well as nonsmooth potentials with indicator functions, were admitted. The operators appearing in the system equations are fractional powers in the spectral sense of general linear operators, which are densely defined, unbounded, selfadjoint, and monotone in the Hilbert space of square-integrable functions on a bounded and smooth three-dimensional domain, and have compact resolvents. Here, for the case of the viscous system, we analyze the asymptotic behavior of the solution as the fractional power coefficient of the second operator tends to zero. We prove convergence to a phase relaxation problem at the limit, and we also investigate this limiting problem, in which an additional term containing the projection of the phase variable on the kernel of the second operator appears.
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    A distributed control problem for a fractional tumor growth model
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2019) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In this paper, we study the distributed optimal control of a system of three evolutionary equations involving fractional powers of three selfadjoint, monotone, unbounded linear operators having compact resolvents. The system is a generalization of a Cahn--Hilliard type phase field system modeling tumor growth that goes back to Hawkins-Daarud et al. (Int. J. Numer. Math. Biomed. Eng. 28 (2012), 3--24.) The aim of the control process, which could be realized by either administering a drug or monitoring the nutrition, is to keep the tumor cell fraction under control while avoiding possible harm for the patient. In contrast to previous studies, in which the occurring unbounded operators governing the diffusional regimes were all given by the Laplacian with zero Neumann boundary conditions, the operators may in our case be different; more generally, we consider systems with fractional powers of the type that were studied in the recent work Adv. Math. Sci. Appl. 28 (2019), 343--375 by the present authors. In our analysis, we show the Fréchet differentiability of the associated control-to-state operator, establish the existence of solutions to the associated adjoint system, and derive the first-order necessary conditions of optimality for a cost functional of tracking type.
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    Well-posedness and optimal control for a Cahn--Hilliard--Oono system with control in the mass term
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2021) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Rocca, Elisabetta; Sprekels, Jürgen
    The paper treats the problem of optimal distributed control of a Cahn--Hilliard--Oono system in Rd, 1 ≤ d ≤ 3 with the control located in the mass term and admitting general potentials that include both the case of a regular potential and the case of some singular potential. The first part of the paper is concerned with the dependence of the phase variable on the control variable. For this purpose, suitable regularity and continuous dependence results are shown. In particular, in the case of a logarithmic potential, we need to prove an ad hoc strict separation property, and for this reason we have to restrict ourselves to the case d = 2. In the rest of the work, we study the necessary first-order optimality conditions, which are proved under suitable compatibility conditions on the initial datum of the phase variable and the time derivative of the control, at least in case of potentials having unbounded domain
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    Optimal control of a phase field system modelling tumor growth with chemotaxis and singular potentials
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2019) Colli, Pierluigi; Signori, Andrea; Sprekels, Jürgen
    A distributed optimal control problem for an extended model of phase field type for tumor growth is addressed. In this model, the chemotaxis effects are also taken into account. The control is realized by two control variables that design the dispensation of some drugs to the patient. The cost functional is of tracking type, whereas the potential setting has been kept quite general in order to allow regular and singular potentials to be considered. In this direction, some relaxation terms have been introduced in the system. We show the well-posedness of the state system, the Fréchet differentiability of the control-to-state operator in a suitable functional analytic framework, and, lastly, we characterize the first-order necessary conditions of optimality in terms of a variational inequality involving the adjoint variables.
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    Second-order analysis of an optimal control problem in a phase field tumor growth model with singular potentials and chemotaxis
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2020) Colli, Pierluigi; Signori, Andrea; Sprekels, Jürgen
    This paper concerns a distributed optimal control problem for a tumor growth model of Cahn--Hilliard type including chemotaxis with possibly singular anpotentials, where the control and state variables are nonlinearly coupled. First, we discuss the weak well-posedness of the system under very general assumptions for the potentials, which may be singular and nonsmooth. Then, we establish the strong well-posedness of the system in a reduced setting, which however admits the logarithmic potential: this analysis will lay the foundation for the study of the corresponding optimal control problem. Concerning the optimization problem, we address the existence of minimizers and establish both first-order necessary and second-order sufficient conditions for optimality. The mathematically challenging second-order analysis is completely performed here, after showing that the solution mapping is twice continuously differentiable between suitable Banach spaces via the implicit function theorem. Then, we completely identify the second-order Fréchet derivative of the control-to-state operator and carry out a thorough and detailed investigation about the related properties.