Deautoconvolution in the two-dimensional case

There is extensive mathematical literature on the inverse problem of deautoconvolution for a function with support in the unit interval $[0,1] \subset \mathbb R$, but little is known about the multidimensional situation. This article tries to fill this gap with analytical and numerical studies on the reconstruction of a real function of two real variables over the unit square from observations of its autoconvolution on $[0,2]^2 \subset \mathbb R^2$ (full data case) or on $[0,1]^2$ (limited data case). In an $L^2$-setting, twofoldness and uniqueness assertions are proven for the deautoconvolution problem in 2D. Moreover, its ill-posedness is characterized and illustrated. Extensive numerical case studies give an overview of the behaviour of stable approximate solutions to the two-dimensional deautoconvolution problem obtained by Tikhonov-type regularization with different penalties and the iteratively regularized Gauss-Newton method.