Carleman estimates for the Korteweg-de Vries equation with piecewise constant main coefficient

Abstract: In this article, we investigate observability-related properties of the Korteweg-de Vries equation with a discontinuous main coefficient, coupled by suitable interface conditions. The main result is a novel two-parameter Carleman estimate for the linear equation with internal observation, assuming a monotonicity condition on the main coefficient. As a primary application, we establish the local exact controllability to the trajectories by employing a duality argument for the linear case and a local inversion theorem for the nonlinear equation. Secondly, we establish the Lipschitz-stability of the inverse problem of retrieving an unknown potential using the Bukhge{\u\i}m-Klibanov method, when some further assumptions on the interface are made. We conclude with some remarks on the boundary observability.