An inverse time-dependent source problem for a time-fractional diffusion equation

Abstract

This paper is devoted to identifying a time-dependent source term in a multi-dimensional time-fractional diffusion equation from boundary Cauchy data. The existence and uniqueness of a strong solution for the corresponding direct problem with homogeneous Neumann boundary condition are firstly proved. We provide the uniqueness and a stability estimate for the inverse time-dependent source problem. Then we use the Tikhonov regularization method to solve the inverse source problem and propose a conjugate gradient algorithm to find a good approximation to the minimizer of the Tikhonov regularization functional. Numerical examples in one-dimensional and two-dimensional cases are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.<br/> © 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd.