An inverse problem for a transmission wave equation with a flat interface in Rn

Abstract

In this paper we study a wave equation with discontinuous principal coefficient within a bounded domain of arbitrary dimension. It is obtained the stability of the inverse problem of recovering a space-dependent coefficient by observing a trace of the corresponding solution on part of the boundary. We provide a precise estimate of the minimum required time, as a function of the velocity change and domain size. The main tools are new global Carleman estimates for the transmission system with a particular weight function adapted to the interface geometry, which allows to obtain an optimal estimate of the minimum time.