English

Counterexamples to uniqueness in the inverse fractional conductivity problem with partial data

Analysis of PDEs 2024-09-10 v2

Abstract

We construct counterexamples for the partial data inverse problem for the fractional conductivity equation in all dimensions on general bounded open sets. In particular, we show that for any bounded domain ΩRn\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n and any disjoint open sets W1,W2RnΩˉW_1,W_2 \Subset \mathbb{R}^n \setminus \bar{\Omega} there always exist two positive, bounded, smooth, conductivities γ1,γ2\gamma_1,\gamma_2, γ1γ2\gamma_1 \neq \gamma_2, with equal partial exterior Dirichlet-to-Neumann maps Λγ1fW2=Λγ2fW2\Lambda_{\gamma_1}f|_{W_2} = \Lambda_{\gamma_2}f|_{W_2} for all fCc(W1)f \in C_c^\infty(W_1). The proof uses the characterization of equal exterior data from another work of the authors in combination with the maximum principle of fractional Laplacians. The main technical difficulty arises from the requirement that the conductivities should be strictly positive and have a special regularity property γi1/21H2s,n2s(Rn)\gamma_i^{1/2}-1 \in H^{2s,\frac{n}{2s}}(\mathbb{R}^n) for i=1,2i=1,2. We also provide counterexamples on domains that are bounded in one direction when n4n \geq 4 or s(0,n/4]s \in (0,n/4] when n=2,3n=2,3 using a modification of the argument on bounded domains.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2203.02442,
  title  = {Counterexamples to uniqueness in the inverse fractional conductivity problem with partial data},
  author = {Jesse Railo and Philipp Zimmermann},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.02442},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

14 pages, 2 figures, final version

R2 v1 2026-06-24T10:02:27.779Z