Spherical mean transform: a PDE approach

Abstract: We study the spherical mean transform on

N^{n}

. The transform is characterized by the Euler-Poisson-Darboux equation. By looking at the spherical harmonic expansions, we obtain a system of 1+1-dimension hyperbolic equations, which provide a good machinery to attack problems of spherical mean transform. As showcases, we discuss two known problems. The first one is a local uniqueness problem investigated by M. Agranovsky and P. Kuchment, [{em Memoirs on Differential Equations and Mathematical Physics}, 52:1--16, 2011]. We present a simple proof which works even under a weaker condition. The second problem is to characterize the kernel of spherical mean transform on annular regions, which was studied by C. Epstein and B. Kleiner [{em Comm. Pure Appl. Math.}, 46(3):441--451, 1993]. We present a short proof that simultaneously obtains the necessity and sufficiency for the characterization. As a consequence, we derive a reconstruction procedure for the transform with additional interior (or exterior) information. We also discuss how the approach works for the hyperbolic and spherical spaces.

Review text

Let \(G(x, t) = f \ast \mu_t\) be the spherical means of a continuous function \(f\) on \(\mathbb R^n\). Here \(\mu_t\) is the normalized measure on the sphere of radius \(t\) centered at the origin in \(\mathbb R^n\). Then, \(G(x, t)\) satisfies the equation \[ \begin{aligned} G_{tt}(x, t) + \frac{n-1}{t} G_t(x, t) = \Delta_x G(x, t),& \qquad (x, t) \in \mathbb R^n \times \mathbb R_+,\\ G(x, 0) = f(x), \quad G_t(x, 0) = 0.&\end{aligned} \] The paper under review is concerned with short and neat proofs of two known results using techniques from PDE. The first one is a local uniqueness result due to Agranovsky and Kuchment which states that, if \(f \in C^\infty (B_{R+ \varepsilon})\), \(f(x) = 0\), \(|x| \leq R\), and \(f \ast \mu_R(x) = 0\), \(|x| < \varepsilon\), then \(f \equiv 0\). The second one is a result due to Epstein and Kleiner which characterizes functions whose spherical means vanish in an annular region in terms of their spherical harmonic expansion. The author's methods are different, rely on PDE-theory, simple energy estimates and domain of dependence results. Using the spherical harmonic expansions and the operators \[ \mathcal{Q}_m = \left( \frac{r}{n} \frac{\partial}{\partial r} + 1 \right) \left( \frac{r}{n+2} \frac{\partial}{\partial r} +1\right) \cdots \left(\frac{r}{n+2(m-1)} \frac{\partial}{\partial r} + 1 \right), \] the first problem is reduced to a domain of dependence result. For the second, the author shows that the spherical harmonic coefficients of the function are killed by the operators \(\mathcal{Q}_m,\) which give explicit expressions for them. A reconstruction formula is also given. Similar questions on hyperbolic and spherical spaces are also discussed.

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