On the Fréchet interaction density of certain wave equations

Abstract

We extend the adjoint method to complex-valued PDEs and introduce the \emph{Fréchet interaction density}, as the most fundamental interaction from which Fréchet sensitivity kernels can be derived. We apply this framework to four representative equations: two real-valued PDEs (the second-order wave equation and the Euler--Bernoulli beam equation) and two complex-valued PDEs (the complex transport equation and the Schrödinger equation with zero potential). We compute and analyze the Fréchet interaction densities for all four PDEs and show that the interaction shows consistent structure, with a waveform that depends on the initial conditions. For the Schrödinger equation, when the adjoint field is chosen as the complex conjugate of the forward wavefunction, the interaction density reduces algebraically to the Born probability density. Our results establish a unified approach to sensitivity analysis for real- and complex-valued PDEs.