An Inverse problem for a fourth order nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLS)

Abstract

We study an inverse problem for the time-dependent nonlinear fourth-order Schrödinger equation on both compact Euclidean domains and compact Riemannian manifolds, (say) $M$. This model arises in nonlinear fiber optics and the theory of optical solitons in gyrotropic media. Our main objective is the identification of unknown coefficients from the associated source-to-solution map, which assigns to each source term $f$, supported in $(0, T)\times Γ$, the corresponding solution $u$ restricted to the same set, where $Γ\subset M$ is a neighborhood of $\partial M$. We prove that the zeroth-order term, the second-order coefficient, and the nonlinear coefficient are uniquely determined by this map. Moreover, the recovery of the symmetric second-order tensor reduces to the inversion of a divergent beam transform.