A topological obstruction to the controllability of nonlinear wave equations with bilinear control term

In this paper we prove that the Ball-Marsden-Slemrod controllability obstruction also holds for nonlinear equations, with integrable bilinear controls. We first show an abstract result and then we apply it to nonlinear wave equations. The first application to the Sine-Gordon equation directly follows from the abstract result, and the second application concerns the cubic wave/Klein-Gordon equation and needs some additional work.