A decreasing rearrangement approach for a class of ill-posed nonlinear integral equations (Q1325739)

A special class of nonlinear Fredholm integral equations of the first kind is considered, where the kernel depends on \(t\) only via the unknown function \(x(t)\). Due to this structure, one can achieve at best uniqueness up to rearrangement. To overcome this ambiguity, the decreasing arrangement is used as a canonical solution exploiting the fact that continuous, \(L^ p\) and \(W^{1,p}\) solutions have decreasing rearrangements which are in the same space, respectively. Conditions for existence and uniqueness of monotone solutions are presented. The equation can be reformulated as a linear integral equation of the first kind for the distribution function (which is, essentially, the inverse of the decreasing rearrangement). As an alternative the general theory of Tikhonov regularization for nonlinear ill-posed problems can be applied and provides convergence and rates under certain conditions. For specific examples arising in optics, all conditions needed for there results are fulfilled.