Determination of unknown coefficient in nonlinear diffusion equation (Q5936418)

The author considers the inverse problem to determine the coefficient \(a(u)\) and the function \(u(x,t)\) from the following nonlinear diffusion equation \[ u_t(x,t) =(a(u(x,t))u_x(x,t))_x , \qquad x\in(0,1), \quad t\in (0,T), \] and the initial-boundary conditions \[ u(x,0)=u_0, \quad u_x(0,t)=0, \quad u(1,t)=f(t), \quad a(f(t))u_x(1,t)=g(t), \] where \(T\), \(u_0\) are given positive numbers, \(f(t)\), \(g(t)\) are given functions, \(f(t)\) is continuous differentiable and positive with its derivative. To solve this problem a finite difference approximation algorithm is given and numerical examples are presented.