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Main Authors: Gong, Fangyu, Jin, Bangti, Kian, Yavar, Liu, Sizhe
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.09248
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author Gong, Fangyu
Jin, Bangti
Kian, Yavar
Liu, Sizhe
author_facet Gong, Fangyu
Jin, Bangti
Kian, Yavar
Liu, Sizhe
contents In this work we investigate the inverse problem of recovering one point source in the heat equation from sparse boundary measurement, i.e., the flux data at several points on the boundary. We prove the unique recovery of the location and piecewise constant in time amplitude when the domain is the unit ball in $\mathbb{R}^d$ ($d\geq2$), and the unique recovery of the location and compactly supported amplitude when the domain is simply connected, smooth and bounded in $\mathbb{R}^2$, under mild conditions on the observational points. The proof combines distinct analytical tools, including the representation of the flux data via Laplacian eigenfunctions on the unit ball, a detailed analysis of the properties of the heat and Poisson kernels, as well as methods drawn from complex analysis. Further we present several numerical experiments to illustrate the feasibility of the recovery from sparse boundary data.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_09248
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Identification of a Point Source in the Heat Equation from Sparse Boundary Measurements
Gong, Fangyu
Jin, Bangti
Kian, Yavar
Liu, Sizhe
Analysis of PDEs
In this work we investigate the inverse problem of recovering one point source in the heat equation from sparse boundary measurement, i.e., the flux data at several points on the boundary. We prove the unique recovery of the location and piecewise constant in time amplitude when the domain is the unit ball in $\mathbb{R}^d$ ($d\geq2$), and the unique recovery of the location and compactly supported amplitude when the domain is simply connected, smooth and bounded in $\mathbb{R}^2$, under mild conditions on the observational points. The proof combines distinct analytical tools, including the representation of the flux data via Laplacian eigenfunctions on the unit ball, a detailed analysis of the properties of the heat and Poisson kernels, as well as methods drawn from complex analysis. Further we present several numerical experiments to illustrate the feasibility of the recovery from sparse boundary data.
title Identification of a Point Source in the Heat Equation from Sparse Boundary Measurements
topic Analysis of PDEs
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.09248