Determining a time-varying potential in time-fractional diffusion from observation at a single point

Abstract

We discuss the identification of a time-dependent potential in a time-fractional diffusion model from a boundary measurement taken at a single point. Theoretically, we establish a conditional Lipschitz stability for this inverse problem. Numerically, we develop an easily implementable iterative algorithm to recover the unknown coefficient, and also derive rigorous error bounds for the discrete reconstruction. These results are attained by leveraging the (discrete) solution theory of direct problems, and applying error estimates that are optimal with respect to problem data regularity. Numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate the theoretical results.