On the solvability of the discrete conductivity and Schrödinger inverse problems

Abstract

We study the uniqueness question for two inverse problems on graphs. Both problems consist in finding (possibly complex) edge or nodal based quantities from boundary measurements of solutions to the Dirichlet problem associated with a weighted graph Laplacian plus a diagonal perturbation. The weights can be thought of as a discrete conductivity and the diagonal perturbation as a discrete Schrödinger potential. We use a discrete analogue to the complex geometric optics approach to show that if the linearized problem is solvable about some conductivity (or Schrödinger potential) then the linearized problem is solvable for almost all conductivities (or Schrödinger potentials) in a suitable set. We show that the conductivities (or Schrödinger potentials) in a certain set are determined uniquely by boundary data, except on a zero measure set. This criterion for solvability is used in a statistical study of graphs where the conductivity or Schrödinger inverse problem is solvable.