Dimension bounds in monotonicity methods for the Helmholtz equation

Abstract

The article [HPS] established a monotonicity inequality for the Helmholtz equation and presented applications to shape detection and local uniqueness in inverse boundary problems. The monotonicity inequality states that if two scattering coefficients satisfy $q_1 \leq q_2$, then the corresponding Neumann-to-Dirichlet operators satisfy $\Lambda(q_1) \leq \Lambda(q_2)$ up to a finite dimensional subspace. Here we improve the bounds for the dimension of this space. In particular, if $q_1$ and $q_2$ have the same number of positive Neumann eigenvalues, then the finite dimensional space is trivial.