Reconstruction for an inverse scattering problem with a Kerr type nonlinearity

Abstract

We study the inverse scattering problem for the Kerr-nonlinear Helmholtz equation \[ Δu + k^2(1+q(x)|u|^2)u = 0 \quad \text{in }\mathbb{R}^n,\; n\geq 2, \] where the aim is to recover the unknown potential $q$ from the scattering amplitude. We obtain uniqueness for full data and partial data cases of backscattering, fixed angle scattering, and fixed energy scattering. For the linear Helmholtz equation, uniqueness in backscattering and fixed angle cases are classical and largely open problems. We are able to explicitly reconstruct individual Fourier modes of the potential, and if the measured directions and energies cover an open subset, we recover $q$. The simplicity of the approach leads to an efficient numerical method, and numerical experiments show accurate reconstructions, even in the presence of noise.