Stability of the reconstruction of the heat reflection coefficient in the phonon transport equation

Abstract

The reflection coefficient is an important thermal property of materials, especially at the nanoscale, and determining this property requires solving an inverse problem based on macroscopic temperature measurements. In this manuscript, we investigate the stability of this inverse problem to infer the reflection coefficient in the phonon transport equation. We show that the problem becomes ill-posed as the system transitions from the ballistic to the diffusive regime, characterized by the Knudsen number converging to zero. Such a stability estimate clarifies the discrepancy observed in previous studies on the well-posedness of this inverse problem. Furthermore, we quantify the rate at which the stability deteriorates with respect to the Knudsen number and confirm the theoretical result with numerical evidence.