Ray Statement of the Acoustic Tomography Problem

Abstract

The ray statement of the inverse problem of determining three unknown variable coefficients in the linear acoustic equation is studied. These coefficients are assumed to differ from given constants only inside some bounded domain. There are point pulse sources and acoustic receivers on the boundary of this domain. Acoustic signals are measured by a receiver near the moment of time at which the signal from a source arrives at the receiver. It is shown that this information makes it possible to uniquely determine all the three desired coefficients. Algorithmically, the original inverse problem splits into three subproblems solved successively. One of them is a well-known inverse kinematic problem (of determining the speed of sound), while the other two lead to the same integral geometry problem for a family of geodesic lines determined by the speed of sound.