Solving time-fractional diffusion equations with a singular source term

Abstract

Abstract This article deals with linear time-fractional diffusion equations with time-dependent singular source term. Whether the order of the time-fractional derivative is multi-term, distributed or space-dependent, we prove that the system admits a unique weak solution enjoying a Duhamel representation, provided that the time-dependence of the source term is a distribution. As an application, the square integrable space-dependent part and the distributional time-dependent part of the source term of a multi-term time-fractional diffusion equation are simultaneously recovered by partial internal observation of the solution.