The Fourier Transform Approach to Inversion of lambda-Cosine and Funk Transforms on the Unit Sphere

Abstract

We use the classical Fourier analysis to introduce analytic families of weighted differential operators on the unit sphere. These operators are polynomial functions of the usual Beltrami-Laplace operator. New inversion formulas are obtained for totally geodesic Funk transforms on the sphere and the correpsonding lambda-cosine transforms.