Moment theory and some inverse problems in potential theory and heat conduction (Q699945)

This is an interesting monograph which presents basic techniques for treatments of moment problems. The classical treatments are concerned primarily with questions of existence and uniqueness. Parellel to the theory of moments, the authors also consider various inverse problems in potential theory and in heat conduction. The book is divided into seven chapters, including also an introduction, an epilogue, a list of references and an index. Chapter 1 deals with some results concerning Banach spaces, in particular Hilbert spaces, operator theory, function spaces (spaces of continuous functions, Lebesgue spaces, Sobolev spaces), analytic functions, harmonic functions, and integral transforms (such as Laplace transform and respectively Fourier transform). Chapter 2 is devoted to the study of regularization of moment problems by truncated expansion and also by using Tikhonov's method. Here is discussed the method of truncated expansion in \(L^2(\Omega)\) and the method of regularization by coercive variational equations in \(L^p(\Omega)\) with \(p\in (1,\infty)\). In Chapter three the authors use again truncated expansion, however, the approximate solutions, instead of being built from an orthonormalized system, are constructed as combinations of some predetermined basis functions, called the Backus-Gilbert basis functions. Chapter 4 deals with the Hausdorff moment problem in one dimension as well as several dimensions. In Chapter 5 the authors are interested in the reconstruction of an analytic function in the unit disc by using approximations by finite moments and the method of optimal recovery. The results from this chapter are used in the forthcoming chapters. Chapter 6 presents basic properties of harmonic functions and treatments of various regularization methods for Cauchy's problem with applications in medicine and geophysics. Chapter 7 deals with inverse problems in heat conduction and presents certain methods of regularization for these problems. This chapter is concerned with direct applications of the results in previous chapters on moment theory to some inverse problems in heat conduction. The epilogue gives an example of a nonlinear problem from gravimetry. The book ends with a bibliography on the topics covered on the volume. This book is well written and rigously treated. Also its subject is interesting. The book can be used as a supplemetary text for graduate or advanced undergraduate courses in inverse problems or in mathematical methods in physical sciences. Also it is accessible to all researchers who are interested in moment theory and inverse problems.