Spherical mean transform: a PDE approach (Q1951307)

Let \(G(x, t) = f \ast \mu_t\) be the spherical means of a continuous function \(f\) on \(\mathbb R^n\). Here \(\mu_t\) is the normalized measure on the sphere of radius \(t\) centered at the origin in \(\mathbb R^n\). Then, \(G(x, t)\) satisfies the equation \[ \begin{aligned} G_{tt}(x, t) + \frac{n-1}{t} G_t(x, t) = \Delta_x G(x, t),& \qquad (x, t) \in \mathbb R^n \times \mathbb R_+,\\ G(x, 0) = f(x), \quad G_t(x, 0) = 0.&\end{aligned} \] The paper under review is concerned with short and neat proofs of two known results using techniques from PDE. The first one is a local uniqueness result due to Agranovsky and Kuchment which states that, if \(f \in C^\infty (B_{R+ \varepsilon})\), \(f(x) = 0\), \(|x| \leq R\), and \(f \ast \mu_R(x) = 0\), \(|x| < \varepsilon\), then \(f \equiv 0\). The second one is a result due to Epstein and Kleiner which characterizes functions whose spherical means vanish in an annular region in terms of their spherical harmonic expansion. The author's methods are different, rely on PDE-theory, simple energy estimates and domain of dependence results. Using the spherical harmonic expansions and the operators \[ \mathcal{Q}_m = \left( \frac{r}{n} \frac{\partial}{\partial r} + 1 \right) \left( \frac{r}{n+2} \frac{\partial}{\partial r} +1\right) \cdots \left(\frac{r}{n+2(m-1)} \frac{\partial}{\partial r} + 1 \right), \] the first problem is reduced to a domain of dependence result. For the second, the author shows that the spherical harmonic coefficients of the function are killed by the operators \(\mathcal{Q}_m,\) which give explicit expressions for them. A reconstruction formula is also given. Similar questions on hyperbolic and spherical spaces are also discussed.