Stability estimate in the Skorokhod metric for the dynamical seismic exploration problem (Q1178151)

Consider the one-dimensional wave equation with \(a^ 2(x)\) wave velocity. The function \(a(x)\) is assumed to be in a class \(M\) which consists of piecewise-differentiable, strictly positive and bounded functions with finitely many discontinuity point the distance between these points is bounded from below by a positive constant which is the same for all elements of \(M\). The author defines a certain metric on \(M\) and proves that the distance, in this metric, between two functions \(a_ j(x)\), \(j=1,2\), can be estimated from above by some special data. His estimate is optimal in some sense. The data he uses are not the usual geophysical-type surface data. His data are expressed in terms of the tavelling waves solutions to the wave equation.