Inverse problems for general second order hyperbolic equations with time-dependent coefficients (Q1682243)

The author studies the inverse problems for the second order hyperbolic equations of general form, \(\sum_{j,k=0}^n (-i\partial_{x_{j}}-A_{j}) \sqrt{(-1)^{n}g(x)}g^{jk}(x) (-i\partial_{x_{k}}-A_{k})u(x)=0\), with time-dependent Lorentzian metric coefficients \(g^{jk}(x)\) and vector potentials \(A_{j}(x)\), assuming that the boundary data are given on a part of the boundary. The main result is the determination of the time-dependent Lorentzian metric by the boundary measurements. This is achieved by the adaptation of a variant of the boundary control method developed by the author [Inverse Probl. 22, 815--831 (2006; Zbl 1099.35170); ibid. 23, 2343--2356 (2007; Zbl 1142.35102)], to the case of time-dependent metrics, with sharper and simpler proofs.