Identification problems of wave phenomena. Theory and numerics (Q1975134)

A quite broad collection of inverse problems that arise in connection with wave phenomena -- and thus are modeled by hyperbolic partial differential and integro-differential equations -- are covered by this book. Some theoretical background for the treated problems was included. Its main purpose is the presentation and discussion of numerical algorithms, so that several convergence results with convergence rate estimates are described. An effort has been thoroughly made by the authors to require only a light knowledge from functional analysis (v.g. familiarity with Sobolev spaces) and of the theory of partial differential equations, integral equations and numerical algorithms (for the latter, mainly finite difference and iterative schemes). This set-up has succeeded in bringing to light a book which is suitable for application oriented readers, like engineers, physicists, geophysicists, and thus it is not restricted only to mathematicians. Its long up-to-date bibliography, with a sensible amount of Russian literature, is worth being mentioned. We highlight the following topics from the contents list: Examples and statement of direct and inverse problems; Volterra operator equations; inverse problem for Maxwell equations, for hyperbolic integro-differential equations for geophysics and eletromagnetic elasticity; the Gel'fand-Levitan method; linearization, regularization (Tikhonov and Lavrent'ev) and optimal control methods.