Multi-parameters identification problem for a degenerate parabolic equation

Abstract This paper investigates an inverse problem of simultaneously reconstructing the initial value and source coefficient in a degenerate parabolic equation. Problems of this type have important applications in several fields of applied science. Being different from other inverse coefficient problems in classical parabolic equations (non-degenerate), the principal coefficient in the mathematical model discussed in the paper may vanish on both extremities of the domain. On the basis of Carleman estimate, the uniqueness and conditional stability of solution for the original problem are established. Then an iteration algorithm of Landweber type is designed to obtain the numerical solution and some typical numerical experiments are also performed. Numerical results show that the proposed method is stable and the unknown coefficients are recovered quite well.