A Riesz–Feller space‐fractional backward diffusion problem with a time‐dependent coefficient: regularization and error estimates

In this paper, we consider a Riesz–Feller space‐fractional backward diffusion problem with a time‐dependent coefficient We show that this problem is ill‐posed; therefore, we propose a convolution regularization method to solve it. New error estimates for the regularized solution are given under a priori and a posteriori parameter choice rules, respectively. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A modified regularized algorithm for a semilinear space‐fractional backward diffusion problem

In this paper, we investigate a backward problem for a space‐fractional partial differential equation. The main purpose is to propose a modified regularization method for the inverse problem. The existence and the uniqueness for the modified regularized solution are proved. To derive the gradient of the optimization functional, the variational adjoint method is introduced, and hence, the unknown initial value is reconstructed. Finally, numerical examples are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The quasi‐reversibility method for a final value problem of the time‐fractional diffusion equation with inhomogeneous source

This paper is devoted to discuss a multidimensional backward heat conduction problem for time‐fractional diffusion equation with inhomogeneous source. This problem is ill‐posed. We use quasi‐reversibility regularization method to solve this inverse problem. Moreover, the convergence estimates between regularization solution and the exact solution are obtained under the a priori and the a posteriori choice rules. Finally, the numerical examples for one‐dimensional and two‐dimensional cases are presented to show that our method is feasible and effective.     

A backward problem for the time‐fractional diffusion equation

In this paper, we are concerned with the backward problem of reconstructing the initial condition of a time‐fractional diffusion equation from interior measurements. We establish uniqueness results and provide stability analysis. Our method is based on the eigenfunction expansion of the forward solution and the Tikhonov regularization to tackle the ill‐posedness issue of the underlying inverse problem. Some numerical examples are included to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An iterative method for backward time‐fractional diffusion problem

The aim of this work is to solve the backward problem for a time‐fractional diffusion equation with variable coefficients in a general bounded domain. The problem is ill‐posed in L ² norm sense. An iteration scheme is proposed to obtain a regularized solution. Two kinds of convergence rates are obtained using an a priori regularization parameter choice rule and an a posteriori regularization parameter choice rule. Numerical examples in one‐dimensional and two‐dimensional cases are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed methods. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 30: 2029–2041, 2014     

Identification of an inverse source problem for time‐fractional diffusion equation with random noise

In this paper, we consider an inverse source problem for a time fractional diffusion equation. In general, this problem is ill posed, therefore we shall construct a regularized solution using the filter regularization method in the random noise case. We will provide appropriate conditions to guarantee the convergence of the approximate solution to the exact solution. Then, we provide examples of filters in order to obtain error estimates for their approximate solutions. Finally, we present a numerical example to show efficiency of the method.     

Stability of solutions of a class of nonlinear fractional diffusion equations with respect to a pseudo‐differential operator

In this paper, we study the forward and the backward in time problems for a class of nonlinear diffusion equations with respect to the pseudo‐differential operator. Herein, we investigate the stability of the solution of the forward problem in relationship with parameters of the pseudo‐differential operator and initial data. Besides, as known, the backward in time problem is instability. Hence, we give a method to regularize the solution of the backward problem in the case of the parameters are perturbed.     

Two Tikhonov‐type regularization methods for inverse source problem on the Poisson equation

In this paper, we investigate a problem of the identification of an unknown source on Poisson equation from some fixed location. A conditional stability estimate for an inverse heat source problem is proved. We show that such a problem is mildly ill‐posed and further present two Tikhonov‐type regularization methods (a generalized Tikhonov regularization method and a simplified generalized Tikhonov regularization method) to deal with this problem. Convergence estimates are presented under the a priori choice of the regularization parameter. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the accuracy and efficiency of our methods. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Existence and regularity results of a backward problem for fractional diffusion equations

In this paper, we study a backward problem for an inhomogeneous fractional diffusion equation in a bounded domain. By applying the properties of Mittag‐Leffler functions and the method of eigenvalue expansion, we establish some results about the existence, uniqueness, and regularity of the mild solutions as well as the classical solutions of the proposed problem in a weighted Hölder continuous function space.     

Regularization of a backward problem for composite fractional relaxation equations

A backward problem for composite fractional relaxation equations is considered with Caputo's fractional derivative, which covers as particular case of Basset problem that concerns the unsteady motion of a particle accelerating in a viscous fluid in fluid dynamics. Based on a spectral problem, the representation of solutions is established. Next, we show the maximal regularity for the corresponding initial value problem. Due to the mildly ill-posedness of current backward problem, the fractional Landweber regularization method will be applied to discuss convergence analysis and error estimates.     

On a backward problem for fractional diffusion equation with Riemann-Liouville derivative

In the present paper, we study the initial inverse problem (backward problem) for a two-dimensional fractional differential equation with Riemann-Liouville derivative. Our model is considered in the random noise of the given data. We show that our problem is not well-posed in the sense of Hadamard. A truncated method is used to construct an approximate function for the solution (called the regularized solution). Furthermore, the error estimate of the regularized solution in L² and H^τ norms is considered and illustrated by numerical example.     

Regularization of a terminal value problem for time fractional diffusion equation

In this article, we study an inverse problem with inhomogeneous source to determine an initial data from the time fractional diffusion equation. In general, this problem is ill-posed in the sense of Hadamard, so the quasi-boundary value method is proposed to solve the problem. In the theoretical results, we propose a priori and a posteriori parameter choice rules and analyze them. Finally, two numerical results in the one-dimensional and two-dimensional case show the evidence of the used regularization method.     

An inverse contact problem in the theory of elasticity

In this paper, we discuss an inverse problem in elasticity for determining a contact domain and stress on this domain. We show that this problem is an ill‐posed problem, and we establish the uniqueness and L²‐conditional stability estimation for the stress. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The backward group preserving scheme for 1D backward in time advection‐dispersion equation

In this article, we propose a backward group preserving scheme (BGPS) on the advection‐dispersion equation (ADE) for tackling of the contamination problems. The BGPS has been successfully applied on the backward heat conduction problems as well as the backward in time Burgers equation, but it has never been applied to solve the ADE. The BGPS is able to recover the spatial distribution of groundwater contaminant concentration in this work. Several numerical examples are worked out, and we show, based on those numerical examples, that the BGPS is applicable to the ADE and the method can also handle the ADE with piecewise constant dispersion coefficients. When a steep gradient is appeared in the solution, several steps of the BGPS can be used to retrieve the desired initial data and its result is better than the marching‐jury backward beam equation (MJBBE) method as far as our examples are concerned. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2010     

TV‐like regularization for backward parabolic problems

This paper investigates an inverse problem for parabolic equations backward in time, which is solved by total‐variation‐like (TV‐like, in abbreviation) regularization method with cost function ∥u_x∥². The existence, uniqueness and stability estimate for the regularization problem are deduced in the linear case. For numerical illustration, the variational adjoint method, which presents a simple method to derive the gradient of the optimization functional, is introduced to reconstruct the unknown initial condition for both linear and nonlinear parabolic equations. The conjugate gradient method is used to iteratively search for the optimal approximation. Numerical results validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Identification of a time-dependent source term for a time fractional diffusion problem

In this paper, we study an inverse problem of identifying a time-dependent term of an unknown source for a time fractional diffusion equation using nonlocal measurement data. Firstly, we establish the conditional stability for this inverse problem. Then two regularization methods are proposed to for reconstructing the time-dependent source term from noisy measurements. The first method is an integral equation method which formulates the inverse source problem into an integral equation of the second kind; and a prior convergence rate of regularized solutions is derived with a suitable choice strategy of regularization parameters. The second method is a standard Tikhonov regularization method and formulates the inverse source problem as a minimizing problem of the Tikhonov functional. Based on the superposition principle and the technique of finite-element interpolation, a numerical scheme is proposed to implement the second regularization method. One- and two-dimensional examples are carried out to verify efficiency and stability of the second regularization method.     

Tikhonov regularization method for a backward problem for the inhomogeneous time-fractional diffusion equation

Fractional (nonlocal) diffusion equations replace the integer-order derivatives in space and time by their fractional-order analogs and they are used to model anomalous diffusion, especially in physics. In this paper, we study a backward problem for an inhomogeneous time-fractional diffusion equation with variable coefficients in a general bounded domain. Such a backward problem is of practically great importance because we often do not know the initial density of substance, but we can observe the density at a positive moment. The backward problem is ill-posed and we propose a regularizing scheme by using Tikhonov regularization method. We also prove the convergence rate for the regularized solution by using an a priori regularization parameter choice rule. Numerical examples illustrate applicability and high accuracy of the proposed method.     

Inverse problem with a time‐integral condition for a fractional diffusion equation

We find the conditions for the unique solvability of the inverse problem for a time‐fractional diffusion equation with Schwarz‐type distributions in the right‐hand sides. This problem is to find a generalized solution of the Cauchy problem and an unknown space‐dependent part of an equation's right‐hand side under a time‐integral overdetermination condition.     

Simultaneous inversion of two initial values for a time‐fractional diffusion‐wave equation

This study is devoted to recovering two initial values for a time‐fractional diffusion‐wave equation from boundary Cauchy data. We provide the uniqueness result for recovering two initial values simultaneously by the method of Laplace transformation and analytic continuation. And then we use a nonstationary iterative Tikhonov regularization method to solve the inverse problem and propose a finite dimensional approximation algorithm to find good approximations to the initial values. Numerical examples in one‐ and two‐dimensional cases are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Extension of GKB‐FP algorithm to large‐scale general‐form Tikhonov regularization

In a recent paper an algorithm for large‐scale Tikhonov regularization in standard form called GKB‐FP was proposed and numerically illustrated. In this paper, further insight into the convergence properties of this method is provided, and extensions to general‐form Tikhonov regularization are introduced. In addition, as alternative to Tikhonov regularization, a preconditioned LSQR method coupled with an automatic stopping rule is proposed. Preconditioning seeks to incorporate smoothing properties of the regularization matrix into the computed solution. Numerical results are reported to illustrate the methods on large‐scale problems. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.