Boundary controllability and source reconstruction in a viscoelastic string under external traction

Treatises on vibrations devote large space to study the dynamical behavior of an elastic system subject to known external tractions since usually a ``system'' is part of a chain of mechanisms which disturb the ``system'' for example due to the periodic rotation of shafts. These ``disturbances'' affect the horizontal component of traction in a time dependent way. In this paper we shall study control and source identification problems for a viscoelastic string subject to external traction, using moment methods.