Applications of kinetic tools to inverse transport problems

Abstract

We show that the inverse problems for a class of kinetic equations can be solved by classical tools in PDE analysis including energy estimates and the celebrated averaging lemma. Using these tools, we give a unified framework for the reconstruction of the absorption coefficient for transport equations in the subcritical and critical regimes. Moreover, we apply this framework to obtain, to the best of our knowledge, the first result in a nonlinear setting. We also extend the result of recovering the scattering coefficient in Choulli and Stefanov (1998 Osaka J. Math. 36 87–104) from 3D to 2D strictly convex domains.