Augmented data for the Backus problem

Abstract

Backus considered a boundary value problem for the Laplace equation with the non-linear data in the form of the magnitude $|Du|$ of the gradient of the solution u. We consider this problem with the data expanded by $(\partial/\partial\nu)|Du|$ given on the boundary of the domain. To justify the requirement for additional data, we use them to estimate the number of sources for the related inverse source problem in the plane. We show that, for an arbitrary dimension, a harmonic function satisfies a quasi-linear equation on the boundary of the domain with the coefficients involving the augmented data. We use the finite element method to recover the harmonic function on the boundary by solving numerically the derived equation.