A note on the degree of ill-posedness for mixed differentiation on the d-dimensional unit cube

Abstract

Numerical differentiation of a function, contaminated with noise, over the unit interval $[0,1] \subset \mathbb{R}$ by inverting the simple integration operator $J:L^2([0,1]) \to L^2([0,1])$ defined as $[Jx](s):=\int_0^s x(t) dt$ is discussed extensively in the literature. The complete singular system of the compact operator $J$ is explicitly given with singular values $\sigma_n(J)$ asymptotically proportional to $1/n$, which indicates a degree {\sl one} of ill-posedness for this inverse problem. We recall the concept of the degree of ill-posedness for linear operator equations with compact forward operators in Hilbert spaces. In contrast to the one-dimensional case with operator $J$, there is little material available about the analysis of the d-dimensional case, where the compact integral operator $J_d:L^2([0,1]^d) \to L^2([0,1]^d)$ defined as $[J_d\,x](s_1,\ldots,s_d):=\int_0^{s_1}\ldots\int_0^{s_d} x(t_1,\ldots,t_d)\, dt_d\ldots dt_1$ over unit $d$-cube is to be inverted. This inverse problem of mixed differentiation $x(s_1,\ldots,s_d)=\frac{\partial^d}{\partial s_1 \ldots \partial s_d} y(s_1,\ldots ,s_d)$ is of practical interest, for example when in statistics copula densities have to be verified from empirical copulas over $[0,1]^d \subset \mathbb{R}^d$. In this note, we prove that the non-increasingly ordered singular values $\sigma_n(J_d)$ of the operator $J_d$ have an asymptotics of the form $\frac{(\log n)^{d-1}}{n}$, which shows that the degree of ill-posedness stays at one, even though an additional logarithmic factor occurs. Some more discussion refers to the special case $d=2$ for characterizing the range $\mathcal{R}(J_2)$ of the operator $J_2$.