Reconstruction of pointwise sources in a time-fractional diffusion equation

Abstract

This paper is concerned with an inverse pointwise source problem for the time-fractional diffusion equation in the two-dimensional case. The source term to be identified models the action of a finite number of small particles. Each particle is assumed to be no larger than a single point, characterized by its location and intensity. Both theoretical and numerical aspects are discussed. In the theoretical part, we analyse the well-posedness of the Dirac time-fractional diffusion problem. For the inverse problem, we establish that the unknown point sources can be uniquely identified from local measured data and we derive a local Lipschitz stability result. In the numerical part, we develop a fast and accurate reconstruction approach. The unknown pointwise sources are characterized as solution to an optimization problem minimizing a tracking-type functional. A noniterative reconstruction algorithm is devised, allowing us to determine the number, locations and intensities of the pointwise sources. The efficiency of the proposed approach is confirmed by some numerical examples.