English

Inverse boundary value problems for certain doubly nonlinear parabolic and elliptic equations

Analysis of PDEs 2026-03-10 v1

Abstract

We consider an inverse boundary value problem for the doubly nonlinear parabolic equation ϵ(x)tum(γ(x)up2u)=0in (0,T)×Ω, \epsilon(x)\partial_t u^m-\nabla\cdot\bigl(\gamma(x)|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u\bigr)=0 \quad\text{in }(0,T)\times\Omega, where p(1,){2}p\in(1,\infty)\setminus\{2\}, m>0m>0, and the coefficients ϵ\epsilon and γ\gamma are positive. Our first main result shows that when m>p1m>p-1, the lateral Cauchy data determine both coefficients. The proof proceeds by reducing the parabolic inverse problem to an inverse problem for the nonlinear elliptic equation (γwp2w)+Vwm=0in Ω. -\nabla\cdot\bigl(\gamma|\nabla w|^{p-2}\nabla w\bigr)+Vw^m=0 \quad\text{in }\Omega. Our second main result establishes uniqueness for the pair (γ,V)(\gamma,V) from the nonlinear Dirichlet-to-Neumann map of this elliptic equation. The argument has two steps. First, asymptotic expansions of the elliptic Dirichlet-to-Neumann map recover the weighted pp-Laplacian Dirichlet-to-Neumann map, and and from it the coefficient γ\gamma. Second, once γ\gamma is known, linearization at a noncritical background solution yields recovery of VV. In dimension two we work under a simply connectedness assumption on the domain, while in dimensions n3n\ge 3 we assume that the conductivity is invariant in one known direction.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.08297,
  title  = {Inverse boundary value problems for certain doubly nonlinear parabolic and elliptic equations},
  author = {Cătălin I. Cârstea and Tuhin Ghosh},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.08297},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:10:12.881Z