Determination of convection terms and quasi-linearities appearing in diffusion equations

Abstract

We consider the highly nonlinear and ill-posed inverse problem of determining some general expression $F(x,t,u,\nabla_xu)$ appearing in the diffusion equation $\partial_tu-Δ_x u+F(x,t,u,\nabla_xu)=0$ on $Ω\times(0,T)$, with $T>0$ and $Ω$ a bounded open subset of $\mathbb R^n$, $n\geq2$, from measurements of solutions on the lateral boundary $\partialΩ\times(0,T)$. We consider both linear and nonlinear expression of $F(x,t,u,\nabla_xu)$. In the linear case, the equation can be seen as a convection-diffusion equation and our inverse problem corresponds to the unique recovery, in some suitable sense, of a time evolving velocity field associated with the moving quantity as well as the density of the medium in some rough setting described by non-smooth coefficients on a Lipschitz domain. In the nonlinear case, we prove the recovery of more general quasi-linear expression appearing in a nonlinear parabolic equation associated with more complex model. Here the goal is to determine the underlying physical low of the system associated with our equation. In this paper, we consider for what seems to be the first time the unique recovery of a general vector valued first order coefficient, depending on both time and space variable. Moreover, we provide results of full recovery of some general class of quasi-linear terms admitting evolution inside the system independently of the solution from measurements at the boundary. These last results improve earlier works of Isakov in terms of generality and precision. In addition, our results give a partial positive answer, in terms of measurements restricted to the lateral boundary, to an open problem posed by Isakov in his classic book (\textit{Inverse Problems for Partial Differential Equations}) extended to the recovery of quasi-linear terms.