Two methods for the inverse problem of memory reconstruction (Q1594584)

The paper is devoted to the study of the Cauchy problem for a second-order hyperbolic equation \[ u_{tt} = \Delta u + \int_0^t h(t - \tau) u(x, \tau) d \tau , \quad t > 0, \;x \in {\mathbb{R}}^3, \] where \(h(t)\) is a memory function and \[ u(x,0) = 0, \qquad u_t (x,0) = \delta (x). \] The solution to this problem can be represented as \[ u(x,t) = \theta (t) \delta (t^2 - |x |^2)/ 2\pi + v(x,t) , \] where \(v(x,t) \equiv 0\) for \(t < |x|\), \(v(x,0) = v_t (x,0) = 0\). The direct problem here consists in determining the function \(v (x,t)\) from the equation and conditions above. The corresponding inverse problem is to determine the memory \(h(t)\) from the information \(v(x_0 , t) = f(t)\) on the scattered wave \(v(x,t)\) at every time \(t \geq 0\) and an arbitrary base point \(x_0 \in {\mathbb{R}}^3\). The authors find some sufficient uniqueness conditions for solutions to these direct and inverse problems. The proofs are based on estimates for successive approximations to solutions of nonlinear Volterra equations of a special type.