Restoration of the boundary condition in the boundary value problem for the heat equation (Q1819556)

The present paper deals with the determination of the unknown coefficient \(\lambda\) (t) in the following boundary value problem for the one- dimensional heat equation \[ u_ t=u_{xx},\quad (x,t)\in Q_ T=\{(x,t): 0<x<\ell,\quad 0<t<T\}, \] u(x,0)\(=0\), \(0\leq x\leq \ell\), \(u_ x(0,t)=0\), \(0\leq t\leq T\), \(u(\ell,t)+\lambda (t)u_ x(\ell,t)=\mu (t)\), \(0\leq t\leq T\), when we have additional information about the solution \[ u(0,t)=f(t),\quad 0\leq t\leq T. \] The above-mentioned problem may be solved by determining the functions \(\psi (t)=u(\ell,t)\), \(\psi_ 1(t)=u_ x(\ell,t)\) from certain Volterra integral equations of the first kind. The corresponding numerical procedure can be significantly simplified if the monotonicity of u(\(\ell,t)\) and \(u_ x(\ell,t)\) is assured a priori. The paper presents sufficient conditions for the functions u(\(\ell,t)\), \(u_ x(\ell,t)\) to be non-decreasing. A more complicated case when the function \(\lambda\) depends on the solution u(\(\ell,t)\) is dealt with similarly.