Stable determination of time-dependent collision kernel in the nonlinear Boltzmann equation

Abstract

We consider an inverse problem for the nonlinear Boltzmann equation with a time-dependent kernel in dimensions $n\ge 2$. We establish a logarithm-type stability result for the collision kernel from measurements under certain additional conditions. A uniqueness result is derived as an immediate consequence of the stability result. Our approach relies on second-order linearization, multivariate finite differences, as well as the stability of the light-ray transform.