An inverse problem for the time-dependent linear Boltzmann equation in a Riemannian setting

Abstract

The linear Boltzmann equation governs the absorption and scattering of a population of particles in a medium with an ambient field, represented by a Riemannian metric, where particles follow geodesics. In this paper, we study the possible issues of uniqueness and stability in recovering the absorption and scattering coefficients from the boundary knowledge of the albedo operator. The albedo operator takes the incoming flux to the outgoing flux at the boundary. For simple compact Riemannian manifolds of dimension $n \geq 2$, we study the stability of the absorption coefficient from the albedo operator up to a gauge transformation. We derive that when the absorption coefficient is isotropic then the albedo operator determines uniquely the absorption coefficient and we establish a stability estimate. We also give an identification result for the reconstruction of the scattering parameter. The approach in this work is based on the construction of suitable geometric optics solutions and the use of the invertibility of the geodesic ray transform.