Carleman estimate for linear viscoelasticity equations and an inverse source problem

Abstract

We consider the linear system of viscoelasticity with the homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition. First we prove a Carleman estimate with boundary values of solutions of viscoelasticity system. Since a solution $u$ under consideration is not assumed to have compact support, in the decoupling of the Lam\'e operator by introducing div $u$ and rot $u$, we have no boundary condition for them, so that we have to carry out arguments by a pseudodifferential operator. Second we apply the Carleman estimate to an inverse source problem of determining a spatially varying factor of the external source in the linear viscoelastitiy by extra Neumann data on the lateral subboundary over a sufficiently long time interval and establish the stability estimate.