New approach for solving the inverse boundary value problem of Laplace's equation on a circle: Technique renovation of the Grad‐Shafranov (GS) reconstruction

Abstract

In this paper, the essential technique of Grad‐Shafranov (GS) reconstruction is reformulated into an inverse boundary value problems (IBVPs) for Laplace's equation on a circle by introducing a Hilbert transform between the normal and tangent component of the boundary gradients. It is proved that the specified IBVPs have unique solution, given the known Dirichlet and Neumann conditions on certain arc. Even when the arc is reduced to only one point on the circle, it can be inferred logically that the unique solution still exists there on the remaining circle. New solution approach for the specified IBVP is suggested with the help of the introduced Hilbert transform. An iterated Tikhonov regularization scheme is applied to deal with the ill‐posed linear operators appearing in the discretization of the new approach. Numerical experiments highlight the efficiency and robustness of the proposed method. According to linearity of the elliptic operator in GS equation, its solution can be divided into two parts. One is solved from a semilinear elliptic equation with an homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition. The other is solved from the IBVP of Laplace's equation. It is concluded that there exists a unique solution for the so‐called elliptic Cauchy problem for the essential technique of GS reconstruction.