Characterization for stability in planar conductivities (Q1701858)

Calderón's problem asks if the conductivity \(\gamma\) in the conductivity equation \[ \nabla \cdot \left( \gamma \nabla u \right) = 0 \] can be reconstructed based on Dirichlet and Neumann measurements of the solutions \(u\), which are encoded in the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map \(\Lambda_\gamma\). In two dimensions the uniqueness result of \textit{K. Astala} and \textit{L. Päivärinta} [Ann. Math. (2) 163, No. 1, 265--299 (2006; Zbl 1111.35004) states that \(\Lambda_{\gamma_1} = \Lambda_{\gamma_2}\) implies \(\gamma_1 = \gamma_2\). Stability results for the same problem state that some norm of \(\gamma_1 - \gamma_2 \) goes to zero as the operator norm of \(\Lambda_{\gamma_1} - \Lambda_{\gamma_2}\) does so. The present paper characterizes families of conductivies where stability holds for certain norms. The main theorem concerns a family of isotropic conductivities on the unit disk that satisfy: The conductivities and their inverses are uniformly bounded from above by \(K \geq 1\), and the conductivities are identically one outside a disk of radius \(r_0 < 1\). The main theorem states that the map \(\Lambda_\gamma \mapsto \gamma\) is uniformly continuous with respect to the \(L^2\)-norm on the conductivities on the unit disk if and only if there exists a modulus of continuity \(\omega\) such that for all the conductivities we have \(\omega_2 \gamma \leq \gamma\) on the disk of radius \(r_0\), where \[ \left( \omega_2 \gamma \right) (t) = \sup_{|y| \leq t} \left\| \gamma - \tau_y \gamma \right\|_{L^2}. \] Here, \(\tau_y\) is the spatial shift by \(y\).