Travel Time Tomography

We survey some results on travel time tomography. The question is whether we can determine the anisotropic index of refraction of a medium by measuring the travel times of waves going through the medium. This can be recast as geometry problems, the boundary rigidity problem and the lens rigidity problem. The boundary rigidity problem is whether we can determine a Riemannian metric of a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary by measuring the distance function between boundary points. The lens rigidity problem problem is to determine a Riemannian metric of a Riemannian manifold with boundary by measuring for every point and direction of entrance of a geodesic the point of exit and direction of exit and its length. The linearization of these two problems is tensor tomography. The question is whether one can determine a symmetric two-tensor from its integrals along geodesics. We emphasize recent results on boundary and lens rigidity and in tensor tomography in the partial data case, with further applications.     

The spectral projections and the resolvent for scattering metrics

In this paper, we consider a compact manifold with boundaryX equipped with a scattering metricg as defined by Melrose [9]. That is,g is a Riemannian metric in the interior ofX that can be brought to the formg=x ⁻⁴ dx²+x^{−2 h’} near the boundary, wherex is a boundary defining function andh’ is a smooth symmetric 2-cotensor which restricts to a metrich on ϖX. LetH=Δ+V, whereV∈x ²C^∞ (X) is real, soV is a ‘short-range’ perturbation of Δ. Melrose and Zworski started a detailed analysis of various operators associated toH in [11] and showed that the scattering matrix ofH is a Fourier integral operator associated to the geodesic flow ofh on ϖX at distance π and that the kernel of the Poisson operator is a Legendre distribution onX×ϖX associated to an intersecting pair with conic points. In this paper, we describe the kernel of the spectral projections and the resolvent,R(σ±i0), on the positive real axis. We define a class of Legendre distributions on certain types of manifolds with corners and show that the kernel of the spectral projection is a Legendre distribution associated to a conic pair on the b-stretched productX _b ² (the blowup ofX ² about the corner, (ϖX)²). The structure of the resolvent is only slightly more complicated. As applications of our results, we show that there are ‘distorted Fourier transforms’ forH, i.e., unitary operators which intertwineH with a multiplication operator and determine the scattering matrix; we also give a scattering wavefront set estimate for the resolventR(σ±i0) applied to a distributionf.     

Inverting the local geodesic X-ray transform on tensors

We prove the local invertibility, up to potential fields, and stability of the geodesic X-ray transform on tensor fields of order 1 and 2 near a strictly convex boundary point, on manifolds with boundary of dimension n ≥ 3. We also present an inversion formula. Under the condition that the manifold can be foliated with a continuous family of strictly convex surfaces, we prove a global result which also implies a lens rigidity result near such a metric. The class of manifolds satisfying the foliation condition includes manifolds with no focal points, and does not exclude existence of conjugate points.     

From resolvent estimates to damped waves

In this paper, we show how to obtain decay estimates for the damped wave equation on a compact manifold without geometric control via knowledge of the dynamics near the undamped set. We show that if replacing the damping term with a higher-order complex absorbing potential gives an operator enjoying polynomial resolvent bounds on the real axis, then the “resolvent” associated to our damped problem enjoys bounds of the same order. It is known that the necessary estimates with complex absorbing potential can also be obtained via gluing from estimates for corresponding non-compact models.     

Positive commutators at the bottom of the spectrum

Bony and Häfner have recently obtained positive commutator estimates on the Laplacian in the low-energy limit on asymptotically Euclidean spaces; these estimates can be used to prove local energy decay estimates if the metric is non-trapping. We simplify the proof of the estimates of Bony-Häfner and generalize them to the setting of scattering manifolds (i.e. manifolds with large conic ends), by applying a sharp Poincaré inequality. Our main result is the positive commutator estimate

     

Microlocal analysis of asymptotically hyperbolic and Kerr-de Sitter spaces (with an appendix by Semyon Dyatlov)

In this paper we develop a general, systematic, microlocal framework for the Fredholm analysis of non-elliptic problems, including high energy (or semiclassical) estimates, which is stable under perturbations. This framework, described in Sect. 2, resides on a compact manifold without boundary, hence in the standard setting of microlocal analysis. Many natural applications arise in the setting of non-Riemannian b-metrics in the context of Melrose’s b-structures. These include asymptotically de Sitter-type metrics on a blow-up of the natural compactification, Kerr-de Sitter-type metrics, as well as asymptotically Minkowski metrics. The simplest application is a new approach to analysis on Riemannian or Lorentzian (or indeed, possibly of other signature) conformally compact spaces (such as asymptotically hyperbolic or de Sitter spaces), including a new construction of the meromorphic extension of the resolvent of the Laplacian in the Riemannian case, as well as high energy estimates for the spectral parameter in strips of the complex plane. These results are also available in a follow-up paper which is more expository in nature (Vasy in Uhlmann, G. (ed.) Inverse Problems and Applications. Inside Out II, 2012). The appendix written by Dyatlov relates his analysis of resonances on exact Kerr-de Sitter space (which then was used to analyze the wave equation in that setting) to the more general method described here.     

Morawetz estimates for the wave equation at low frequency

We consider Morawetz estimates for weighted energy decay of solutions to the wave equation on scattering manifolds (i.e., those with large conic ends). We show that a Morawetz estimate persists for solutions that are localized at low frequencies, independent of the geometry of the compact part of the manifold. We further prove a new type of Morawetz estimate in this context, with both hypotheses and conclusion localized inside the forward light cone. This result allows us to gain a $1/2$ power of $t$ decay relative to what would be dictated by energy estimates, in a small part of spacetime.