# American Institute of Mathematical Sciences

June  2018, 7(2): 197-216. doi: 10.3934/eect.2018010

## The recovery of a parabolic equation from measurements at a single point

 Department of Mathematics, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA 30118, USA

* Corresponding author: boumenir@westga.edu

Received  December 2016 Revised  November 2017 Published  May 2018

By measuring the temperature at an arbitrary single point located inside an unknown object or on its boundary, we show how we can uniquely reconstruct all the coefficients appearing in a general parabolic equation which models its cooling. We also reconstruct the shape of the object. The proof hinges on the fact that we can detect infinitely many eigenfunctions whose Wronskian does not vanish. This allows us to evaluate these coefficients by solving a simple linear algebraic system. The geometry of the domain and its boundary are found by reconstructing the first eigenfunction.

Citation: Amin Boumenir, Vu Kim Tuan, Nguyen Hoang. The recovery of a parabolic equation from measurements at a single point. Evolution Equations & Control Theory, 2018, 7 (2) : 197-216. doi: 10.3934/eect.2018010
##### References:
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##### References:
 [1] Sh. A. Alimov, V. A. Il'in and E. M. Nikishin, Questions on the convergence of multiple trigonometric series and spectral expansions Ⅰ, Russian Mathematical Surveys, 31 (1976), 28-83.   Google Scholar [2] H. Ammari, An Introduction to Mathematics of Emerging Biomedical Imaging, Mathématiques & Applications 62, Springer, Berlin, 2008.  Google Scholar [3] S. A. Avdonin and A. Bulanova, Boundary control approach to the spectral estimation problem: The case of multiple poles, Math. Control Signals Systems, 22 (2011), 245-265.  doi: 10.1007/s00498-010-0052-5.  Google Scholar [4] S. A. Avdonin, F. Gesztesy and A. Makarov, Spectral estimation and inverse initial boundary value problems, Inverse Probl. and Imaging, 4 (2010), 1-9.  doi: 10.3934/ipi.2010.4.1.  Google Scholar [5] S. A. Avdonin and S. A. Ivanov, Families of Exponentials. The Method of Moments in Controllability Problems for Distributed Parameter Systems, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995.  Google Scholar [6] L. Beilina and M. V. Klibanov, Approximate Global Convergence and Adaptivity for Coefficient Inverse Problems, Springer, New York, 2012. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4419-7805-9.  Google Scholar [7] A. Bostan and P. Dumas, Wronskians and linear independence, Amer. Math. Monthly, 117 (2010), 722-727, arXiv: 1301.6598v1. doi: 10.4169/000298910x515785.  Google Scholar [8] A. Boumenir and V. K. Tuan, Inverse problems for multidimensional heat equations by measurements at a single point on the boundary, Numer. Funct. Anal. Optim., 30 (2009), 1215-1230.  doi: 10.1080/01630560903498979.  Google Scholar [9] A. Boumenir and V. K. Tuan, An inverse problem for the wave equation, Journal of Inverse and Ill-posed Problems, 19 (2011), 273-592.  doi: 10.1515/JIIP.2011.056.  Google Scholar [10] A. S. Demidov and M. Moussaoui, An inverse problem originating from magnetohydrodynamics, Inverse Problems, 20 (2004), 137-154.  doi: 10.1088/0266-5611/20/1/008.  Google Scholar [11] H. O. Fattorini and D. L. Russell, Exact controllability theorems for linear parabolic equations in one space dimension, Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis, 43 (1971), 272-292.  doi: 10.1007/BF00250466.  Google Scholar [12] D. Gilbarg and N. S. Trudinger, Elliptic Partial Differential Equations of Second Order, Classics in Mathematics, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2001.  Google Scholar [13] A. Henrot, Extremum Problems for Eigenvalues of Elliptic Operators, Frontiers in Mathematics, Birkhäuser, Basel, 2006.  Google Scholar [14] V. A. Il'in and Sh. A. Alimov, Conditions for the convergence of spectral decompositions that correspond to self-adjoint extentions of elliptic operators, Ⅴ, Differential Equations, 10 (1974), 360-377.   Google Scholar [15] V. Isakov, Inverse Problems for Partial Differential Equations, 2$^{nd}$ Ed, Applied Mathematical Sciences 127, Springer, New York, 2006.  Google Scholar [16] M. V. Klibanov and A. Timonov, Carleman Estimates for Coefficient Inverse Problems and Numerical Applications, VSP, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 2004. doi: 10.1515/9783110915549.  Google Scholar [17] V. Mikhailov, Equations aux Derivees Partielles, French transl., Mir, Moscow, 1980.  Google Scholar [18] K. Wolsson, Linear dependence of a function set of $m$ variables with vanishing generalized Wronskians, Linear Algebra and its Applications, 117 (1989), 73-80.  doi: 10.1016/0024-3795(89)90548-X.  Google Scholar [19] Z. Wu, J. Yin and C. Wang, Elliptic and Parabolic Equations, World Scientific, Singapore, 2006. doi: 10.1142/6238.  Google Scholar [20] L. V. Zhizhiashshvilli, Some problems in the theory of simple and multiple trigonometric series, Russian Mathematical Surveys, 28 (1973), 62-119.   Google Scholar [21] E. Zuazua, Controllability and observability of partial differential equations: Some results and open problems, in Handbook of Differential Equations: Evolutionary Equations, Vol. Ⅲ, Elsevier/North-Holland, Amsterdam, 3 (2007), 527-621. doi: 10.1016/S1874-5717(07)80010-7.  Google Scholar
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