Inversion formula, unique continuation property, and range characterization of the mixed ray transform in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) (Q6974038)

For an integer \( m \ge 0 \), let \( T^m = T^m(\mathbb{R}^2) \) denote the space of \( m \)-tensor fields defined on \(\mathbb{R}^2\), and let \( S^m = S^m(\mathbb{R}^2) \) be its subspace consisting of symmetric \( m \)-tensor fields. Furthermore, let \( C^\infty(S^m) \) denote the space of smooth symmetric \( m \)-tensor fields and \( C^\infty_c(S^m) \) be the space of compactly supported tensor fields in \( C^\infty(S^m)\).\N\NGiven a function \( f \in C^\infty_c(S^k \times S^\ell) \), representing a smooth \( (k+\ell) \)-tensor field symmetric with respect to the first \( k \) and last \( \ell \) indices, and writing\N\[\NT\mathbb{S}^1 = \{(x,\xi) \in \mathbb{R}^2 \times \mathbb{S}^1 : \langle x , \xi \rangle = 0\},\N\]\Nfor the tangent bundle of the unit circle in \( \mathbb{R}^2 \), the \textit{mixed ray transform} \( L_{k,\ell} : C^\infty_c(S^k \times S^\ell) \to C^\infty(T\mathbb{S}^1) \) is a bounded linear operator which is defined as:\N\begin{align*}\NL_{k,\ell} f(x,\xi) &= \sum_{i_1 = 1}^{2} \cdots \sum_{i_k = 1}^{2} \sum_{j_1 = 1}^{2} \cdots \sum_{j_\ell = 1}^{2} \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} f_{i_1 \ldots i_k j_1 \ldots j_\ell}(x + t\xi)\, \xi^{i_1} \cdots \xi^{i_k}\, \eta^{j_1} \cdots \eta^{j_\ell}\, dt \\\N&= \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} f_{i_1 \ldots i_k j_1 \ldots j_\ell}(x + t\xi)\, \xi^{i_1} \cdots \xi^{i_k}\, \eta^{j_1} \cdots \eta^{j_\ell}\, dt,\N\end{align*}\Nwhere \( \eta \) denotes a unit vector orthogonal to \( \xi = (\xi_1,\xi_2) \). If we take \( \ell = 0 \) and \( f \in C^\infty_c(S^m) \), then the above formula reduces to the classical ray transform of symmetric \( m \)-tensor fields, which has a wide range of applications in medical imaging.\N\NIn this paper, the authors study the mixed ray transform and establish its invertibility, unique continuation properties, and the range characterization.