Inverse Problem - Non-linear Inverse Problems

Non-linear Inverse Problems

An inherently more difficult family of inverse problems are collectively referred to as non-linear inverse problems.

Non-linear inverse problems have a more complex relationship between data and model, represented by the equation:

Here is a non-linear operator and cannot be separated to represent a linear mapping of the model parameters that form into the data. In such research, the first priority is to understand the structure of the problem and to give a theoretical answer to the three Hadamard questions (so that the problem is solved from the theoretical point of view). It is only later in a study that regularization and interpretation of the solution's (or solutions', depending upon conditions of uniqueness) dependence upon parameters and data/measurements (probabilistic ones or others) can be done. Hence the corresponding following sections do not really apply to these problems. Whereas linear inverse problems were completely solved from the theoretical point of view at the end of the nineteenth century, only one class of nonlinear inverse problems was so before 1970, that of inverse spectral and (one space dimension) inverse scattering problems, after the seminal work of the Russian mathematical school (Krein, Gelfand, Levitan, Marchenko). A large review of the results has been given by Chadan and Sabatier in their book "Inverse Problems of Quantum Scattering Theory" (two editions in English, one in Russian).

In this kind of problem, data are properties of the spectrum of a linear operator which describe the scattering. The spectrum is made of eigenvalues and eigenfunctions, forming together the "discrete spectrum", and generalizations, called the continuous spectrum. The very remarkable physical point is that scattering experiments give information only on the continuous spectrum, and that knowing its full spectrum is both necessary and sufficient in recovering the scattering operator. Hence we have invisible parameters, much more interesting than the null space which has a similar property in linear inverse problems. In addition, there are physical motions in which the spectrum of such an operator is conserved as a consequence of such motion. This phenomenon is governed by special nonlinear partial differential evolution equations, for example the Korteweg–de Vries equation. If the spectrum of the operator is reduced to one single eigenvalue, its corresponding motion is that of a single bump that propagates at constant velocity and without deformation, a solitary wave called a "soliton".

A perfect signal and its generalizations for the Korteweg–de Vries equation or other integrable nonlinear partial differential equations are of great interest, with many possible applications. This area has been studied as a branch of mathematical physics since the 1970s. Nonlinear inverse problems are also currently studied in many fields of applied science (acoustics, mechanics, quantum mechanics, electromagnetic scattering - in particular radar soundings, seismic soundings and nearly all imaging modalities).