Chunyu Shen and Anna Gao In this paper, we study the optimal control problem for the viscous nonlinear dispersive wave equation. We first prove the existence and uniqueness of a weak solution to this equation in a short interval by using the Galerkin method. Furthermore, the existence of an optimal solution to the viscous n ... [J. Math. Phys. 51, 053520 (2010)] published Tue May 18, 2010.