8 Other problems
Above, two classes of inverse problems for mathematical physics equations have been
considered in which it was required to identify the right-hand side of an equation or the
initial condition for the equation. Among other problems important for applications,
boundary value inverse problems deserve mention in which to be reconstructed are the
boundary conditions. For approximate solution of the latter problems, methods using
some perturbation of the equation or methods using non-locally perturbed boundary
conditions can be applied. In the case in which the generalized inverse method is used
to solve some boundary value inverse problem, namely, in treating the spatial coordi-
nate as the evolutionary coordinate, special emphasis is to be placed on the hyperbolic
regularization method, used to pass from the hyperbolic to a parabolic equation. In the
present chapter, possibilities offered by the generalized inverse method as applied to
problems with perturbed boundary conditions are discussed with the example of the
boundary value inverse problem for the one-dimensional parabolic equation of sec-
ond order. For a more general two-dimensional problem, an algorithm with iteratively
refined boundary condition is used. The problems most difficult for examination are
coefficient inverse problems for mathematical physics equations. Here, we have re-
stricted ourselves to the matter of numerical solution of two coefficient problems. In
the first problem it is required to determine the higher coefficient as a function of the
solution for a one-dimensional parabolic equation. We describe a computational al-
gorithm that solves the coefficient inverse problem for the two-dimensional elliptic
equation in the case in which the unknown coefficient does not depend on one of the
two coordinates.
8.1 Continuation over the spatial variable in the boundary
value inverse problem
In this section, we consider the boundary value inverse problem for the one-
dimensional parabolic equation of second order (heat conduction equation). In this
problem, it is required to reconstruct the boundary condition from measurements per-
formed inside the calculation domain. This problem belongs to the class of condition-
ally well-posed problems and, to be solved stably, it requires the use of regularization
methods. Here, the generalized inverse method is to be applied under conditions in
which the problem is considered as an evolutionary one with respect to the spatial
variable. The use of the generalized inverse method leads, in particular, to the well-
known hyperbolic regularization of boundary value inverse problems.