The evolution of the state of many systems modeled by linear partial
di?erential equations (PDEs) or linear delay di?erential equations can
be described by ope- torsemigroups.Thestate ofsucha systemis anelementin
anin?nite-dimensional normed space, whence the name in?nite-dimensional
linear system . The study of operator semigroups is a mature area of
functional analysis, which is still very active. The study of
observation and control operators for such semigroups is relatively more
recent. These operators are needed to model the - teraction of a system
with the surrounding world via outputs or inputs. The main
topicsofinterestaboutobservationandcontroloperatorsareadmissibility,
obse- ability, controllability, stabilizability and detectability.
Observation and control operators are an essential ingredient of
well-posed linear systems (or more gen- ally system nodes). In this book
we deal only with admissibility, observability and controllability. We
deal only with operator semigroups acting on Hilbert spaces. This book
is meant to be an elementary introduction into the topics m- tioned
above. By elementary we mean that we assume no prior knowledge of
?nite-dimensional control theory, and no prior knowledge of operator
semigroups or of unbounded operators. We introduce everything needed
from these areas. We do assume that the reader has a basic understanding
of bounded operators on Hilbert spaces, di?erential equations, Fourier
and Laplace transforms, dist- butions and Sobolev spaces on
n-dimensional domains. Much of the background needed in these areas is
summarized in the appendices, often with proofs."