Inverse problem of recovering a time-dependent nonlinearity appearing in third-order nonlinear acoustic equations *

Abstract

Abstract This paper is devoted to some inverse problems of recovering the nonlinearity for the Jordan–Moore–Gibson–Thompson equation, which is a third order nonlinear acoustic equation. This equation arises, for example, from the wave propagation in viscous thermally relaxing fluids. The well-posedness of the nonlinear equation is obtained with the small initial and boundary data. By the second order linearization to the nonlinear equation, and construction of complex geometric optics solutions for the linearized equation, the uniqueness of recovering the nonlinearity is derived.