On an inverse boundary value problem of a nonlinear elliptic equation in three dimensions (Q2264023)

The work considers an inverse boundary value problem for a three dimensional nonlinear elliptic partial differential equation in a bounded domain. In general, the problem is severely ill-posed. The formal solution can be written in terms of the two-dimensional elliptic operator via its eigenfunction expansion. It is shown that the solution is stabilized if the large eigenvalues are cut off. In a theoretical framework, a truncation approach (some modification of the projection regularization method) is developed for the ill-posed problem to construct the regularized solution. Under some assumptions on the regularity of the exact solution, several explicit error estimates are obtained, including an error estimate of Hölder type. For numerical illustration, two examples on the elliptic sine-Gordon equation and elliptic Allen-Cahn equations are constructed to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed methods.