An inverse boundary value problem for the $p$-Laplacian

Abstract

This work tackles an inverse boundary value problem for a $p$-Laplace type partial differential equation parametrized by a smoothening parameter $\tau \ge 0$. The aim is to numerically test reconstructing a conductivity type coefficient in the equation when Dirichlet boundary values of certain solutions to the corresponding Neumann problem serve as data. The numerical studies are based on a straightforward linearization of the forward map, and they demonstrate that the accuracy of such an approach depends nontrivially on $1<p<\infty$ and the chosen parametrization for the unknown coefficient. The numerical considerations are complemented by proving that the forward operator, which maps a Hölder continuous conductivity coefficient to the solution of the Neumann problem, is Fréchet differentiable, excluding the degenerate case $\tau =0$ that corresponds to the classical (weighted) $p$-Laplace equation.

23 pages, 5 figures