Direct and inverse source problems for degenerate parabolic equations (Q2187938)

Degenerate parabolic partial differential equations (PDEs) with vanishing or unbounded leading coefficients make the PDE non-uniformly parabolic, and new theories need to be developed in the context of practical applications of such rather unstudied mathematical models arising in porous media, population dynamics, financial mathematics, etc. This paper considers direct and inverse problems associated with non-uniform parabolic PDEs, where the leading space- and time-dependent coefficient is allowed to vanish on a non-empty, but zero measure, kernel set. In the context of inverse analysis, the authors investigate the linear but ill-posed identification of a space-dependent source from a time-integral observation of the weighted main dependent variable. In particular, the paper investigates the questions of unique solvability and numerical solution of the linear direct and inverse source problems for the degenerate (in the sense to be defined below) parabolic equation \[ u_t - a(x, t)u_{xx} - b(x, t)u_x - d(x, t)u = p(x)g(x, t) + r(x, t), \ \ (x, t) \in [0, l] \times [0, T], \] with the initial and boundary conditions \[ u(x, 0) = u_0(x), x \in [0, l]; \ \ u(0, t) = u(l, t) = 0, t \in [0, T]. \] In the inverse problem, the additional information is given by the integral observation \[ \int \limits_0^T u(x, t) \chi (t) dt = \varphi(x), \ \ x \in [0, l] . \] For both, this inverse source problem as well as its corresponding direct formulation, the question of well-posedness is investigated. Examples of inverse problems for which sufficient conditions guaranteeing the unique solvability are fulfilled are also given, and the results of numerical simulations are presented.