Special Session 48: Recent Advances in Nonlinear PDEs and Inverse Problems

Inverse scattering problems for nonlinear wave equations on Lorentzian manifolds
Teemu Tyni
University of Oulu
Finland
Co-Author(s):    Spyros Alexakis, Hiroshi Isozaki, Matti Lassas
Abstract:
We discuss some recent results on inverse scattering problems for semi-linear wave equations. The inverse scattering problem is formulated on a Lorentzian manifold equipped with a Minkowski type infinity. We show that a scattering functional, which roughly speaking maps measurements of solutions of a semi-linear wave equation at the past infinity to the future infinity, determines the manifold, the conformal class of the metric, and the nonlinear potential function up to a gauge. The main tools we employ are a Penrose-type conformal compactification of the Lorentzian manifold, reduction of the scattering problem to the study of the source-to-solution operator, and the use of higher order linearization method to exploit the nonlinearity of the wave equation. This is a joint work with S. Alexakis, H. Isozaki, and M. Lassas.