Stepwise regularization method for a nonlinear Riesz–Feller space-fractional backward diffusion problem

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, we consider the backward diffusion problem for a space-fractional diffusion equation (SFDE) with a nonlinear source, that is, to determine the initial data from a noisy final data. Very recently, some papers propose new modified regularization solutions to solve this problem. To get a convergence estimate, they required some strongly smooth conditions on the exact solution. In this paper, we shall release the strongly smooth conditions and introduce a stepwise regularization method to solve the backward diffusion problem. A numerical example is presented to illustrate our theoretical result.