The initial-to-final inverse problem for the heat operator

Abstract

We study an inverse problem for the heat equation in a medium that generates internal heat at a rate proportional to the heat density. The goal consists of determining the heat-generation coefficient $V$ from the knowledge of the initial-to-final map, which assigns to every initial heat density its final heat density. We state and prove a uniqueness result for the heat operator in a region modelled by $\mathbb{R}^n$ with $n \geq 2$. We assume that $V$ is bounded and decays super-exponentially. Our approach relies on constructing exponentially-growing solutions for the corresponding heat operator. A key contribution of our approach is to provide a weighted $L^2$-estimate, which follows from the moment generating function of a Gaussian random variable. This extends the initial-to-final-state inverse problem, previously studied for the Schr\"odinger equation, to the parabolic setting.