Stability estimates for the initial-to-final-state inverse problem

Abstract

The initial-to-final-state inverse problem for the Schrödinger equation consists in determining uniquely the Hamiltonian that generates the evolution, assuming the knowledge of the initial-to-final-state map. This functional maps each initial state $f\in L^2(\mathbb{R}^n)$ to the corresponding final state at a fixed time $T$. The problem was formulated by Caro and Ruiz in the case of Hamiltonians arising from time-dependent bounded electric potentials that exhibit super-exponential decay at infinity. Caro, Parissis and the authors of this article established that uniqueness also holds for time-independent bounded potentials with super-linear decay at infinity. In this paper, we quantify the above uniqueness results establishing that the potentials are stable under small changes of the initial-to-final-state maps. In the case of time-dependent potentials we get a stability of logarithmic type. A notable improvement is achieved when the potentials are time-independent, where under this assumption we prove Hölder stability estimates.