The geodesic X-ray transform with fold caustics (Q1951724): Difference between revisions

The authors study the X-ray type of transforms over geodesic-like families of curves with conjugate points (caustics). It is well known that the geodesic X-ray transform is invertible for simple manifolds, when geodesics have no conjugate points. The principal question is what happens in the presence of conjugate points. For a Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) and \((p,v)\in TM\), let \(\exp_p(v)\) be a regular exponential map. For a smooth function \(\kappa\) on \(TM\setminus\{0\}\) and \((p,\theta)\in SM\), the weighted X-ray transform \(Xf\) is defined as \(Xf(p,\theta)=\int\kappa(\exp_p(t\theta),\dot{\exp}_p(t\theta))\,f(\exp_p(t\theta))\,dt\), where the integral is carried over the maximal interval including \(t=0\) where \(\exp(t\theta)\) is defined. Let \((p_{_0},v_{_0})\in TM\) be such that \(v=v_{_0}\) is a critical point for \(\exp_{p_{_0}}(v)\) called a conjugate vector of fold type. The authors study \(Xf\) for \(p\) close to \(p_{_0}\) and \(\theta\) close to \(\theta_{_0}=v_{_0}/|v_{_0}|\) under the assumption that the support of \(f\) is such that \(v_{_0}\) is the only conjugate vector \(v\) at \(p_{_0}\) such that \(\exp_{p_{_0}}\theta_{_0}\in\text{supp} f\). It turns out that instead of studying \(X\) directly, it is sufficient to study the normal operator \(Nf(p)=\int_{S_pM}\kappa^2(p,\theta)\,Xf(p,\theta)\,d\sigma(\theta)\), where \(d\sigma(\theta)\) is the induced Riemannian surface measure on \(S_p(M)\). The authors show that the normal operator \(N\) is the sum of a pseudo-differential operator \(A\) and a Fourier integral operator. They compute the principal symbol of both operators and the canonical relation associated to the Fourier integral operator \(F\). In two dimensions, they show that there is always a cancellation of singularities to some order and give an example when the normal operator is not microlocally invertible. In the case of three dimensions or higher, if the canonical relation is a local canonical graph, they show microlocal invertibility of the normal operator.