Estimating the Accuracy of a Method of Auxiliary Boundary Conditions in Solving an Inverse Boundary Value Problem for a Nonlinear Equation

An inverse boundary value problem for a nonlinear parabolic equation is considered. Two-sided estimates for the norms of values of a nonlinear operator in terms of those of a corresponding linear operator are obtained.On this basis, two-sided estimates for the modulus of continuity of a nonlinear inverse problem in terms of that of a corresponding linear problem are obtained. A method of auxiliary boundary conditions is used to construct stable approximate solutions to the nonlinear inverse problem. An accurate (to an order) error estimate for the method of auxiliary boundary conditions is obtained on a uniform regularization class.     

Recovery of the unknown coefficients in a two-dimensional hyperbolic equation

In this paper, an inverse boundary value problem for a two-dimensional hyperbolic equation with overdetermination conditions is studied. To investigate the solvability of the original problem, we first consider an auxiliary inverse boundary value problem and prove its equivalence to the original problem in a certain sense. We then use the Fourier method to reduce such an equivalent problem to a system of integral equations. Furthermore, we prove the existence and uniqueness theorem for the auxiliary problem by the contraction mappings principle. Based on the equivalency of these problems, the existence and uniqueness theorem for the classical solution of the original inverse problem is proved. Some discussions on the numerical solutions for this inverse problem are presented including some numerical examples.     

An Improved Implementation of An Iterative Method in Boundary Identification Problems

In this paper, an inverse problem of determining geometric shape of a part of the boundary of a bounded domain is considered. Based on a conjugate gradient method, employing the adjoint equation to obtain the descent direction, an identification scheme is developed. The implementation of the method based on the boundary element method (BEM) is also discussed. This method solves the inverse boundary problem accurately without a priori information about the unknown shape to be estimated.     

An iterative method for solving an inverse problem for a first-order nonlinear partial differential equation with estimates of guaranteed accuracy and the number of steps

For a partial differential equation simulating population dynamics, the inverse problem of determining its nonlinear right-hand side from an additional boundary condition is studied. This inverse problem is reduced to a functional equation, for which the existence and uniqueness of a solution is proven. An iterative method for solving this inverse problem is proposed. The accuracy of the method is estimated, and restrictions on the number of steps are obtained.     

Carleman estimate for a strongly damped wave equation and applications to an inverse problem

In this paper, we establish a Carleman estimate for a strongly damped wave equation in order to solve a coefficient inverse problems of retrieving a stationary potential from a single time‐dependent Neumann boundary measurement on a suitable part of the boundary. This coefficient inverse problem is for a strongly damped wave equation. We prove the uniqueness and the local stability results for this inverse problem. The proof of the results relies on Carleman estimate and a certain energy estimates for hyperbolic equation with strongly damped term. Moreover, this method could be used for a similar inverse problem for an integro‐differential equation with hyperbolic memory kernel. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SOURCE TERM IDENTIFICATION WITH DISCONTINUOUS DUAL RECIPROCITY APPROXIMATION AND QUASI-NEWTON METHOD FROM BOUNDARY OBSERVATIONS

This paper deals with discontinuous dual reciprocity boundary element method for solving an inverse source problem.The aim of this work is to determine the source term in elliptic equations for nonhomogenous anisotropic media,where some additional boundary measurements are required.An equivalent formulation to the primary inverse problem is established based on the minimization of a functional cost,where a regularization term is employed to eliminate the oscillations of the noisy data.Moreover,an efficient algorithm is presented and tested for some numerical examples.     

Reconstruction of an Impedance in Two-dimensions from Spectral Data

The two-dimensional spectral inverse problem involves the reconstruction of an unknown coefficient in an elliptic partial differential equation from spectral data, such as eigenvalues. Projection of the boundary value problem and the unknown coefficient onto appropriate vector spaces leads to a matrix inverse problem. Unique solutions of this matrix inverse problem exist provided that the eigenvalue data is close to the eigenvalues associated with the analogous constant coefficient boundary value problem. We discuss here the application of such a technique to the reconstruction of an impedance p in the boundary value problem $$ \eqalign{ -\nabla (\,p \nabla u) = \lambda p u \hbox {\quad in R} \cr u = 0 \hbox {\quad on R}}$$ where R is a rectangular domain. The matrix inverse problem, although nonstandard, is solved by a fixed-point iterative method and an impedance function p * is constructed which has the same m lowest eigenvalues as the unknown p . Numerical evidence of the success of the method will be presented.     

Solving a nonlinear inverse Robin problem through a linear Cauchy problem

ABSTRACT

Considered in this paper is an inverse Robin problem governed by a steady-state diffusion equation. By the Robin inverse problem, one wants to recover the unknown Robin coefficient on an inaccessible boundary from Cauchy data measured on the accessible boundary. In this paper, instead of reconstructing the Robin coefficient directly, we compute first the Cauchy data on the inaccessible boundary which is a linear inverse problem, and then compute the Robin coefficient through Newton's law. For the Cauchy problem, a parameter-dependent coupled complex boundary method (CCBM) is applied. The CCBM has its own merits, and this is particularly true when it is applied to the Cauchy problem. With the introduction of a positive parameter, we can prove the regularized solution is uniformly bounded with respect to the regularization parameter which is a very good property because the solution can now be reconstructed for a rather small value of the regularization parameter. For the problem of computing the Robin coefficient from the recovered Cauchy data, a least square output Tikhonov regularization method is applied to Newton's law to obtain a stable approximate Robin coefficient. Numerical results are given to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Lipschitz stability in an inverse problem for the Kuramoto–Sivashinsky equation

In this article, we present an inverse problem for the nonlinear 1D Kuramoto–Sivashinsky (KS) equation. More precisely, we study the nonlinear inverse problem of retrieving the anti-diffusion coefficient from the measurements of the solution on a part of the boundary and also at some positive time in the whole space domain. The Lipschitz stability for this inverse problem is our main result and it relies on the Bukhge?m–Klibanov method. The proof is indeed based on a global Carleman estimate for the linearized KS equation.     

A numerical method for solving an inverse thermoacoustic problem

In this paper, we consider an inverse problem of determining the initial condition of an initial boundary value problem for the wave equation with some additional information about solving a direct initial boundary value problem. The information is obtained from measurements at the boundary of the solution domain. The purpose of our paper is to construct a numerical algorithm for solving the inverse problem by an iterative method called a method of simple iteration (MSI) and to study the resolution quality of the inverse problem as a function of the number and location of measurement points. Three two-dimensional inverse problem formulations are considered. The results of our numerical calculations are presented. It is shown that the MSI decreases the objective functional at each iteration step. However, due to the ill-posedness of the inverse problem the difference between the exact and approximate solutions decreases up to some fixed number k _min, and then monotonically increases. This shows the regularizing properties of the MSI, and the iteration number can be considered a regularization parameter.     

A moving pseudo‐boundary method of fundamental solutions for void detection

We propose a new moving pseudo‐boundary method of fundamental solutions (MFS) for the determination of the boundary of a void. This problem can be modeled as an inverse boundary value problem for harmonic functions. The algorithm for imaging the interior of the medium also makes use of radial polar parametrization of the unknown void shape in two dimensions. The center of this radial polar parametrization is considered to be unknown. We also include the contraction and dilation factors to be part of the unknowns in the resulting nonlinear least‐squares problem. This approach addresses the major problem of locating the pseudo‐boundary in the MFS in a natural way, because the inverse problem in question is nonlinear anyway. The feasibility of this new method is illustrated by several numerical examples. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2013     

Reconstruction of boundary regimes in the inverse problem of thermal convection of a high-viscosity fluid

A problem of reconstruction of boundary regimes in a model for free convection of a high-viscosity fluid is considered. A variational method and a quasi-inversion method are suggested for solving the problem in question. The variational method is based on the reduction of the original inverse problem to some equivalent variational minimum problem for an appropriate objective functional and solving this problem by a gradient method. When realizing the gradient method for finding a minimizing element of the objective functional, an iterative process actually reducing the original problem to a series of direct well-posed problems is organized. For the quasi-inversion method, the original differential model is modified by means of introducing special additional differential terms of higher order with small parameters as coefficients. The new perturbed problem is well-posed; this allows one to solve this problem by standard methods. An appropriate choice of small parameters gives an opportunity to obtain acceptable qualitative and quantitative results in solving the inverse problem. A comparison of the methods suggested for solving the inverse problem is made with the use of model examples.     

Numerical methods for some inverse problems of heart electrophysiology

We consider numerical methods for solving inverse problems that arise in heart electrophysiology. The first inverse problem is the Cauchy problem for the Laplace equation. Its solution algorithm is based on the Tikhonov regularization method and the method of boundary integral equations. The second inverse problem is the problem of finding the discontinuity surface of the coefficient of conductivity of a medium on the basis of the potential and its normal derivative given on the exterior surface. For its numerical solution, we suggest a method based on the method of boundary integral equations and the assumption on a special representation of the unknown surface.     

On inverse crack problems in elastostatics

In solid mechanics, nondestructive testing has been an important technique in gathering information about unknown cracks, or defects in material. From a mathematical point of view, this is described as an inverse problem of partial differential equations, that is, the problem is to extract information about the location and shape of an unknown crack from the surface displacement field and traction on the boundary of the elastic material. By using the enclosure method introduced by Prof. Ikehata we can derive the extraction formula of an unknown linear crack from a single set of measured boundary data. Then, we need to have precise properties of a solution of the corresponding boundary value problem; for instance, an expansion formula around the crack tip. In this paper we consider the inverse problem concentrating on this point. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Numerical solution of the inverse problem for the polarized-radiation transfer equation

An inverse problem for the steady vector transfer equation for polarized radiation in an isotropic medium is studied. For this problem, an attenuation factor is found from a given solution of the equation at a medium boundary. An approach is propounded to solve the inverse problem by using special external radiative sources. A formula is derived which relates the Radon transform of an attenuation factor to a radiation-flux density at the boundary. Numerical experiments show that the algorithm for the polarized-radiation transfer equation has an advantage over the method used in the scalar case.     

Discrete-analytic schemes for solving an inverse coefficient heat conduction problem in a layered medium with gradient methods

A method for constructing numerical schemes for an inverse coefficient heat conduction problem with boundary measurement data and piecewise-constant coefficients is considered. Some numerical schemes for a gradient optimization algorithm to solve the inverse problem are presented. The method is based on locally-adjoint problems in combination with approximation methods in Hilbert spaces.     

Boundary Identification for a Blast Furnace

In this paper,the authors discuss an inverse boundary problem for the axi- symmetric steady-state heat equation,which arises in monitoring the boundary corrosion for the blast-furnace.Measure temperature at some locations are used to identify the shape of the corrosion boundary. The numerical inversion is complicated and consuming since the wear-line varies during the process and the boundary in the heat problem is not fixed.The authors suggest a method that the unknown boundary can be represented by a given curve plus a small perturbation,then the equation can be solved with fixed boundary,and a lot of computing time will be saved. A method is given to solve the inverse problem by minimizing the sum of the squared residual at the measuring locations,in which the direct problems are solved by axi- symmetric fundamental solution method. The numerical results are in good agreement with test model data as well as industrial data,even in severe corrosion case.     

Analysis of Direct and Inverse Cavity Scattering Problems

Consider the scattering of a time-harmonic electromagnetic plane wave by an arbitrarily shaped and filled cavity embedded in a perfect electrically conducting infinite ground plane.A method of symmetric coupling of finite element and boundary integral equations is presented for the solutions of electromagnetic scattering in both transverse electric and magnetic polarization cases.Given the incident field,the direct problem is to determine the field distribution from the known shape of the cavity; while the inverse problem is to determine the shape of the cavity from the measurement of the field on an artificial boundary enclosing the cavity.In this paper,both the direct and inverse scattering problems are discussed based on a symmetric coupling method.Variational formulations for the direct scattering problem are presented,existence and uniqueness of weak solutions are studied,and the domain derivatives of the field with respect to the cavity shape are derived.Uniqueness and local stability results are established in terms of the inverse problem.     

Identification of the zeroth-order coefficient and fractional order in a time-fractional reaction-diffusion-wave equation

In this paper, we investigate an inverse problem of recovering the zeroth-order coefficient and fractional order simultaneously in a time-fractional reaction-diffusion-wave equation by using boundary measurement data from both of uniqueness and numerical method. We prove the uniqueness of the considered inverse problem and the Lipschitz continuity of the forward operator. Then the inverse problem is formulated into a variational problem by the Tikhonov-type regularization. Based on the continuity of the forward operator, we prove that the minimizer of the Tikhonov-type functional exists and converges to the exact solution under an a priori choice of regularization parameter. The steepest descent method combined with Nesterov acceleration is adopted to solve the variational problem. Three numerical examples are presented to support the efficiency and rationality of our proposed method.     

Stability of inverse problems in an infinite slab with partial data

In this paper, we study the stability of two inverse boundary value problems in an infinite slab with partial data. These problems have been studied by Li and Uhlmann for the case of the Schrödinger equation and by Krupchyk, Lassas, and Uhlmann for the case of the magnetic Schrödinger equation. Here, we quantify the method of uniqueness proposed by Li and Uhlmann and prove a log–log stability estimate for the inverse problems associated to the Schrödinger equation. The boundary measurements considered in these problems are modeled by partial knowledge of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map: in the first inverse problem, the corresponding Dirichlet and Neumann data are known on different boundary hyperplanes of the slab; in the second inverse problem, they are known on the same boundary hyperplane of the slab.