The Sinc-Galerkin Method for Solving an Inverse

Parabolic Problem with Unknown Source Term

A. Shidfar,1 A. Babaei1,2
1
Department of Applied Mathematics, School of Mathematics, Iran University of
Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
2

Department of Mathematics, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran

Received 10 February 2011; accepted 26 October 2011

Published online 3 February 2012 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).
DOI 10.1002/num.21699

The inverse problem of determining an unknown source term depending on space variable in a parabolic
equation is considered. A numerical algorithm is presented for recovering the unknown function and obtaining a solution of the problem. As this inverse problem is ill-posed, Tikhonov regularization is used for finding
a stable solution. For solving the direct problem, a Galerkin method with the Sinc basis functions in both
the space and time domains is presented. This approximate solution displays an exponential convergence
rate and is valid on the infinite time interval. Finally, some examples are presented to illustrate the ability
and efficiency of this numerical method. 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq
29: 6478, 2013

Keywords: Inverse problem; L-curve; nonhomogeneous parabolic equation; Sinc-Galerkin method;

Tikhonov regularization; unknown source term

I. INTRODUCTION

Many phenomena in nature can be modeled mathematically with the use of partial differential
equations. In recent years, many useful problems resulting from these equations were investigated in literature. Consider the following problem of determining of function u(x, t) satisfying
the nonhomogeneous parabolic equation
ut uxx = F (x, t),

0 < x < 1, t > 0,

(1)

with the initial condition

u(x, 0) = u0 (x),

0 < x < 1,

and the boundary conditions

u(0, t) = (t),

u(1, t) = (t),

t > 0,

Correspondence to: A. Shidfar, Department of Applied Mathematics, School of Mathematics, Iran University of Science
and Technology, Tehran, Iran (e-mail: shidfar@iust.ac.ir)
2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

THE SINC-GALERKIN METHOD FOR SOLVING AN INVERSE PARABOLIC PROBLEM

65

where u0 (x), (t) and (t) are piecewise continuous functions in their domains. Also these
functions satisfy the conditions u0 (0) = (0) and u0 (1) = (0).
This problem is induced in the process of transportation, diffusion and conduction of natural
materials [1,2]. In these contexts u represents the state variable and the right hand side of Eq. (1) is
interpreted as a heat or material source. In many branches of science and engineering, in addition
to the function u(x, t), the source term F (x, t) is also unknown. This problem is called as inverse
source problem, in literature [3]. This problem takes important roles in migration of groundwater,
identification and control of pollution source and environmental protection [4, 5]. For example, in
the modeling of air pollution phenomena, F (x, t) is considered as an unknown pollutant source.
Thus an accurate estimation of pollutant source is crucial to environmental safeguard in cities
with high populations.
In this article, the above inverse problem is considered with a source term in the form
F (x, t) = f (x)g(x, t) + h(x, t),

0 < x < 1, t > 0,

where g(x, t) and h(x, t) are two known functions and f (x) is unknown in their domains. This
problem has been considered by many researchers in theoretical papers, notably papers [513]. In
these references to determine f (x), the authors consider the additional temperature measurements
given at the time t = T . In general, the true state u(x, t) is not known in t = T and measurements
at observation points are taken instead. Thus, in this work, the additional condition is taken to be
point evaluations given as follows:
u(xi , T ) = ui ,

i = 1, . . . , N ,

(2)

where xi , i = 1, . . . , N are N points in the (0, 1). In the rest of this article, by using the extra
condition (2), a numerical algorithm is presented for solving this inverse problem based on the
fully Sinc-Galerkin method.
The Sinc-Galerkin method was first presented by Stenger in [14]. Since then, this method
has been applied to a variety of partial differential equations [1420]. References [15] and [16]
provide excellent overviews of existing methods based on Sinc functions. Fully Sinc-Galerkin
techniques use a Sinc function basis in both space and time. This method exhibits an exponential
order of convergence [15, 16].
The zero initial and boundary conditions are more convenient for the numerical method that
will be presented. Thus, without loss of generality, the following change of variables
u(x, t) = v(x, t) + ((t) (t))x + (t),
and
v(x, t) = w(x, t) + u1 (x)et ,
are used where u1 (x) is the modified initial condition after using the first transformation. Having these transformations, the dependent variable will be again labeled u and the homogeneous
conditions may be obtained as
u(x, 0) = 0,
u(0, t) = 0,

0 < x < 1,

u(1, t) = 0,

t > 0.

Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

(3)
(4)

66

SHIDFAR AND BABAEI

The structure of this article is as follows: In section II, a direct problem will be considered. Some
properties of Sinc function and Sinc quadrature rule will be introduced and Sinc-Galerkin system
for solving this direct problem is constructed. In section III, the unknown function f (x) will be
estimated in the form of a linear combination of orthogonal functions. This approximated function
will be used for determining a solution of the inverse problem. Finally, Some numerical examples
are presented in section IV.

II. A DIRECT PROBLEM

Consider the direct problem (1), (3) and (4). By using the separation of variables, the solution of
this problem may be expressed as follows
t 1

 


2

u(x, t) = 2
F ( , ) sin(i )e(i) (t ) d d sin(i x).
(5)
i=1

If the source function F (x, t) is bounded over its domain and is uniformly Holder

continuous on
each compact subset of this domain, the above direct problem has a unique bounded solution [2].
For obtaining an approximate solution of this problem, we use the Sinc-Galerkin method. Thus,
a review of Sinc function properties, Sinc quadrature rules, and the Sinc-Galerkin method will be
presented, then these properties will be used for solving the problem.
The Sinc function is defined on the whole real line by

sin( x) , x  = 0,
x
Sinc(x) =

1,
x = 0.
Also, for hx > 0 and ht > 0 the translated Sinc functions with evenly spaced nodes for space and
time variables are given as


x khx
, k = 0, 1, 2, . . . ,
S(k, hx )(x) = Sinc
hx


t kht
S  (k, ht )(t) = Sinc
, k = 0, 1, 2, . . . .
ht
To construct approximations by using the Sinc function on the intervals (0, 1) and (0, ), we
consider the conformal mappings


x
,
(x) = ln
1x
and
(t) = ln(t).
Thus the appropriate composite Sinc functions over (0, 1) and (0, ) are given by
Si (x) = S(i, hx )o(x),
Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

(6)

THE SINC-GALERKIN METHOD FOR SOLVING AN INVERSE PARABOLIC PROBLEM

67

and
Sj (t) = S  (j , ht )o (t).

(7)

For solving Eq. (1) with conditions (3) and (4), the composite Sinc basis functions (6) and (7) are
used.
Now, let Mx , Mt , Nx , and Nt are positive integers. The approximate solution for u(x, t) is
defined by the expansion
Nx
Nt



umx ,mt (x, t) =

cij Si (x)Sj (t),

(8)

i=Mx j =Mt

where mx = Mx + Nx + 1, mt = Mt + Nt + 1. The unknown constant coefficients cij in (8) are

determined by orthogonalizing the residual with respect to the same collection Si (x)Sj (t). Following the explanation in chapter 4 and chapter 6 of [16], the discrete system for these unknown
coefficients is obtained by


u 2 u

(9)
2 f (x)g(x, t) h(x, t), Si (x)Sj (t) = 0,
t
x
where Mx i Nx , Mt j Nt and the inner product is defined by
  1
(p, q) =
p(x, t)q(x, t)v(x)w(t)dxdt.
0

(10)

Here v(x)w(t) is a weight function.

For approximating the above inner product, we use the Sinc quadrature rule (see [15] and
[16]). Koonprasert and Bowers in [19] represented the Sinc quadrature rule for a double integral
as following theorem.
Theorem 1.

Suppose that

 




z
<d ,
: arg
1z 
2


DS = w = u + iv : |v| < d
,
2


DW = r = t + is : |arg (r)| < d
.
2

DE = z = x + iy

For each fixed t, let G(x, t) B(DE ) and h > 0. Let and be one-to-one conformal maps of the
domains DE and DW onto DS , respectively. Let zi = 1 (ihz ), tj = 1 (j ht ) and
z = 1 (R),

t = 1 (R). Assume there are positive constants z , z , and Cz (t) such that



(z)
 G(z, t) 
 Cz (t). exp(z |(z)|), z
a(z) ,

  (z) 
exp(z |(z)|), z
b ,
where
a(z) {z
z : (z) = u (, 0)},
b(z) {z
z : (z) = u [0, )}. Also for
each fixed z, let F (z, t) B(DW ) and assume there are positive constants t , t , and Ct (z) such
that



(t)
 G(z, t) 
 Ct (z). exp(t | (t)|), t
a(t) ,

  (t) 
exp(t | (t)|), t
b ,
Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

68

SHIDFAR AND BABAEI

where
a(t) {t
t : (t) = u (, 0)},
b(t) {t
t : (t) = u [0, )}. Then the
Sinc trapezoidal quadrature rule is
 
G(z, t)dzdt = hz ht

Nz
Nt


i=Mz j =Mt

G(zi , tj )
+ O(exp(z Mz hz )) + O(exp(z Nz hz ))
 (zi )  (tj )

+O(exp(2d/hz )) + O(exp(t Mt ht ))+O(exp(t Nt ht )) + O(exp(2 d/ht )).

Remark. In approximating (10) by the Sinc quadrature rule, we require the evaluated derivatives
of the Sinc basis functions at the nodal points. The notation
ij(r) = hr

dr
[S(i, hx )o(x)]|x=xj ,
d r

r = 0, 1, 2, . . . ,

is used for the rth derivative of Si (x) with respect to , evaluated at the nodal point x = xj = j hx ,
j = Mx , . . . , Nx . The values of the derivative for r = 0, 1, 2 are as [16]

1, i = j ,
(0)
ij [S(i, hx )o(x)]|x=xj =
0, i  = j ,

0,
i = j,

d
(1)
ij h [S(i, hx )o(x)]|x=xj = (1)j i

, i = j ,
j i

,
i = j,

d2
3
ij(2) h2 2 [S(i, hx )o(x)]|x=xj =
j i

2(1) , i  = j ,
(j i)2
Similarly, these definitions may be introduced for Sj (t) as well.
Now, suppose that the weight function in the inner product (10) be as

(t)
v(x)w(t) = 
.
(x)

(11)

A complete discussion on the choice of the weight function can be found in [16]. Substituting (8)
in (9), applying the Sinc quadrature rule for double integrals to this result and replacing u(xi , tj )
by uij leads to the discrete system



1
 (tj )


(0)
ip


Nx


p=Mx

1

(xp )

1 (2)
1 (1)
ip
h2x ip
hx
1

(xp )

 


 
 (xp )
1
+
2
(  (xp ))2
 (xp )


.upj +

1

(xi )


2 
Nt

F (xi , tj )
,

2

i )) . (tj )

(  (x

q=Mt



1 (1) 1 (0)  
j q + j q
(tq ) .uiq
ht
2

i = Mx , . . . , Nx , j = Mt , . . . , Nt . (12)

Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

THE SINC-GALERKIN METHOD FOR SOLVING AN INVERSE PARABOLIC PROBLEM

69

For the assembly of this discrete system, it is convenient to define the following matrices:
 
Ix(l) ij(l) mx mx , l = 0, 1, 2,
 
It(l) ij(l) mt mt , l = 0, 1.
Also, let D(g(x)) denote the diagonal matrix with

g(xi ), i = j ,
D(g(x))ij =
0,
i = j .
In this notation, the system (12) takes the matrix form








1
1
1
1
T
A.C.D 
.C.B
.F
.D
=
D
+D
,

(  (x))2
(  (x))2
(t)
 (t)
where C is the mx mt matrix of unknown coefficients cij . The mx mx matrix A and the mt mt
matrix B are given by


 

 
1
1
1
(x)
1
A = 2 Ix(2) + Ix(1) D
+
D
,
hx
hx
(  (x))2
 (x)  (x)

  


1
1
B = It(1) + D
 (t) .
D
ht
2
Also, the ijth-entry of the mx mt matrix F contains the point evaluation of the function F (x, t)
at (xi , tj ).
Theorem 2. Consider the maps and defined in the theorem 1. For the weight function (11)
assume that F /  B(DE ) and that uH B(DE ), where
H = (1/  ) ,

(  /  ),

.

Also assume that F  B(DW ) and that uH B(DW ), where



H =  , (  )3/2 ,  /  .
Further assume
|u(x, t)| Cx x (1 x)x t t +1/2 t t +1/2 , (x, t) (0, 1) (0, ),
making the selections


 x


Nx =  Mx + 1 ,
x



 x


Mt =  Mx + 1 ,
t

where h = hx = ht , and
h=



 x


Nt =  Mx + 1 ,
t


d/(x Mx ),

results in
u umx ,mt KMx2 exp(( dx Mx )1/2 ).
Proof. See chapter 6 of Ref. [16].
Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

(13)

(14)

(15)

70

SHIDFAR AND BABAEI

III. ESTIMATING THE UNKNOWN FUNCTION f (x )

To solve the inverse problem (1)-(4) and determining u(x, t), first the unknown function f (x)
must be identified. Researchers in literature have used different methods for approximating f (x).
For example, in [21] authors used a procedure based on the Sinc expansion to find an estimation.
According to the assumptions on the source function in the section II, its possible to get a
finite dimensional approximation of f (x) in C[0, 1] as
f (x)

N


cj j (x),

(16)

j =1

by using the least square method [22], where N is the number of points in the additional condition
(2). Also cj , j = 1, . . . , N are real constants and j (x)s are a set of orthonormal functions. The
error of the approximation (16) may be further reduced by adding more functions j +1 (x), to
the pervious set [22].
In this work, we consider the orthonormal set based on the independent functions x j 1 ,
j = 1, . . . , N. By using this set of functions, we derive an approximation as
f (x)

N


cj x j 1 .

(17)

j =1

Coefficients cj in the (17) are unknown. Thus, if these coefficients are determined, then we get an
estimation for f (x). By substituting (17) in the exact solution (5), putting x = xi , i = 1, . . . , N ,
and using the additional condition (2), we find
T 1

 


2

ui = u(xi , T ) = 2
F ( , ) sin(i )e(i) (T ) d d sin(i xi ),
i=1

(18)

thus we get a system of N equations with N unknown coefficients cj , j = 1, . . . , N .

Now, suppose that X = (ci ), U = (ui ), D = (di ), i = 1, . . . , N , where
T 1

 


2

di = 2
h( , ) sin(k )e(k) (T ) d d sin(k xi ),
k=1

and A = (aij ), i, j = 1, . . . , N , where

T 1

 


2

aij = 2
j 1 g( , ) sin(k )e(k) (T ) d d sin(k xi ).
k=1

Putting B = U D, the above mentioned system of equations may be in the form

AX = B.

(19)

The major difficulty to solve this inverse problems is its ill-posedness [23]. Here, since the extra
condition (2) comes from practical measurements that are inherently contaminated with random
Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

THE SINC-GALERKIN METHOD FOR SOLVING AN INVERSE PARABOLIC PROBLEM

71

noise, numerical reconstruction is very difficult and some special regularization methods are
required to obtain an accurate approximation for solution of the system. For this purpose, the
Tikhonov regularization method is applied. By this technique, finding the solution of system (19)
is replaced by the minimization problem [23]
min AX B 2 + X 2 .

XR N

(20)

The constant > 0 is the regularization parameter, which controls the trade-off between fidelity
to the data and smoothness of the solution. Different methods are presented by authors in literature
for determining regularization parameter. We use the L-curve method in our work. The L-curve
is a plot of the squared estimate norm of the regularized solution X against the squared norm
of the regularized residual AX B for a range of values of regularization parameters. Hansen
[2426] proposes to choose the value of the regularization parameter that corresponds to the point
at the corner of the curve. The corner is defined to be the point on the L-curve with curvature of
largest magnitude. The name L-curve implies that the shape of the curve should resemble L
letter closely.
IV. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES

In this section, we apply the numerical algorithm presented in the pervious sections for solving
some test problems. The values of h, Mx , Nx , Mt , and Nt are chosen according to the theorem 2.
For a given problem with a known solution the parameters x , x , t and t may be determined
by using the relation (13). But in practice, we set x = x = t = t = 1 and d = /2. By this
assumptions, from the relations (14) and (15), we get
Mx = Nx = Mt = M,
and

h=
.
2M
Also we suppose that Nt = Mt .
A randomly distributed perturbation randn(N ) is added to the additional data U = (ui ),
i = 1, . . . , N, to generating the noisy data in the form
 
U = uj = (uj ) + randn(N ),
where randn(.) is a normal distribution function with zero mean and unit standard deviation and
dictates the level of noise.
In addition,
ES (h) is defined, for reporting error on the Sinc grid points (xi , tj ) with

h = / (2M), as [16]


eih
jh
ES (h) = max |u(xi , tj ) umx ,mt (xi , tj )| : xi =
.
, tj = e
i,j
1 + eih
Example 1. Let us consider Eq. (1) with g(x, t) = et (1 x + 2t(1 + x)), h(x, t) = 0.
With these assumptions, the true source term is f (x) = xex and the exact solution of Eq. (1) is
u(x, t) = tx(1 x)ext . The additional data is considered in the seven equidistant points
(j h, 1),

j = 1, . . . , 7,

Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

72

SHIDFAR AND BABAEI

FIG. 1. Exact source function (Green) and its approximations in the example 1 for additional data with the
noise level = 103 (Red) and = 104 (Blue). [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is
available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

with h = 0.125. First, the unknown source term f (x) is estimated by the method described in the
previous section. The exact source function and its approximations are shown in figure 1. Now
by this estimated source term, the direct problem is solved by the Sinc-Galerkin method. The
L-curves for determining of regularization parameter are shown in Figs. 2 and 3 for various noise
levels. The absolute error of the approximate solution according to estimated source function, on
the Sinc grid points, are shown in Table I. Table II displays the absolute error of this approximate
solution for various values of x when t = 3. These tables and Fig. 1 indicate the good accuracy

FIG. 2. The L-curve plot of example 1 for data with noise level = 103 . [Color figure can be viewed in
the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]
Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

THE SINC-GALERKIN METHOD FOR SOLVING AN INVERSE PARABOLIC PROBLEM

73

FIG. 3. The L-curve plot of example 1 for data with noise level = 104 . [Color figure can be viewed in
the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

of the obtained numerical solution. Also, Table III displays the errors on the Sinc grid points
for different numbers of the additional measurements (2) when the noise level = 0.5 103
is added to these measurements. This table ensures that any further increase in the number of
additional measurements dont significantly affect the accuracy of the numerical solution of the
problem.
TABLE I.

Errors and system sizes for the example 1.

= 103

= 0.5 103

= 104

4
8
16
24

1.1107
0.7854
0.5554
0.4534

1.6694 103
5.8832 104
5.4649 104
5.6551 104

1.5850 103
4.2998 104
1.9414 104
1.9770 104

1.5375 103
4.2855 104
6.6444 105
6.2114 105

TABLE II.
x
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9

The absolute error of approximate solution in the example 1 when t = 3.

M=4

M = 12
5

4.1881 10
1.2412 104
2.1176 104
2.0792 104
2.2696 104
3.0430 104
3.3166 104
2.0679 104
1.5415 104

M = 16
5

5.0714 10
9.6928 105
1.4682 104
1.7551 104
2.0688 104
2.2890 104
2.2164 104
2.1110 104
1.4663 104

M = 24
6

1.5321 10
2.800 106
6.9627 106
2.8567 106
2.6647 106
5.4378 106
9.0959 106
2.6769 105
3.3362 105

Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

3.7290 107
2.1796 106
2.9736 106
1.7186 106
5.6184 107
2.5238 106
1.0787 105
2.5750 105
3.4739 105

74

SHIDFAR AND BABAEI

TABLE III.

M
4
8
16
24

N =3

Errors for the example 1 with the different numbers of additional measurements.
N =5

2.2314 102 1.58465 103

2.3068 102 5.0799 104
2.2723 102 4.5988 104
2.3448 102 4.5309 104

N =7

N =9

N = 11

N = 13

1.5850 103
4.2998 104
1.9414 104
1.9770 104

1.5497 103
4.2985 104
1.7513 104
1.7602 104

1.5738 103
4.2996 104
1.4406 104
1.5707 104

1.5004 103
4.2833 104
2.7343 104
2.8623 104

FIG. 4. Exact source function (Green) and its approximations in the example 2 for additional data with the
noise level = 103 (Red) and = 104 (Blue). [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is
available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

FIG. 5. The L-curve plot of example 2 for data with noise level = 103 . [Color figure can be viewed in
the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]
Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

THE SINC-GALERKIN METHOD FOR SOLVING AN INVERSE PARABOLIC PROBLEM

75

FIG. 6. The L-curve plot of example 2 for data with noise level = 104 . [Color figure can be viewed in
the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

FIG. 7. The exact solution of example 2. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available
at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

Example 2.

Consider Eq. (1) with g(x, t) = e t and h(x, t) = 0. With these assumptions,
t

2 t

the exact solution of Eq. (1) is u(x, t) = e e

sin( x) and f (x) = sin( x). We assume
2
= 0.5. The additional data is considered in the nine equidistant points with h = 0.1. A random
noise randn(9) is added to this data.
Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

76

SHIDFAR AND BABAEI

FIG. 8. The approximate solution of example 2 with M = 20. [Color figure can be viewed in the online
issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

The exact source function and its approximations are shown in Fig. 4. Now by this estimated
source term, the direct problem is solved by the Sinc-Galerkin method. The L-curves for determining of regularization parameter are shown in Figs. 5 and 6 for various noise levels. Figures 7 and 8
indicate the exact and the approximate solution of the problem. It can be seen from Figs. 7 and 8
that the numerical solution is very close to the exact solution. Table IV displays the absolute error
on the Sinc grid points. Finally, Table V displays how the number of additional measurements (2)
with the noise level = 104 , affects the numerical solution.
V. CONCLUSIONS

In this article, the inverse problem of determining an unknown source term depending on space
variable in a parabolic equation was considered. Space dependent source term f (x) was estimated
TABLE IV.

Errors on the Sinc grid points and system sizes for the example 2.

= 103

= 0.5 103

= 104

4
8
16
24

1.1107
0.7854
0.5554
0.4534

4.5579 103
1.1471 103
8.3639 104
7.7192 104

4.7045 103
1.0788 103
3.0925 104
2.9024 104

4.6814 103
1.0756 103
2.4774 104
2.4359 104

TABLE V.
M
4
8
16
24

Errors for the example 2 with the different numbers of additional measurements.

N =5

N =7
3

4.7378 10
1.0905 103
3.7797 104
3.8891 104

N =9
3

4.8360 10
1.2051 103
4.4791 104
4.6397 104

N = 11
3

4.6814 10
1.0756 103
2.4774 104
2.4359 104

N = 13
3

4.7077 10
1.0806 103
2.1629 104
1.7732 104

Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

N = 15
3

4.6738 10
1.0758 103
1.7974 104
1.7287 104

4.6521 103
1.0715 103
1.0401 104
6.8532 105

THE SINC-GALERKIN METHOD FOR SOLVING AN INVERSE PARABOLIC PROBLEM

77

in the form of a linear combination of orthogonal polynomial functions. A system of linear equations was constructed to obtain the coefficients of this combination. Since this system of equations
was ill-conditioned, the Tikhonov regularization technique was applied to find a stable solution.
Afterwards, the approximated function was used to get the solution of inverse problem. For this
purpose a numerical algorithm was presented based on the Galerkin method. The basis functions
in the Galerkin scheme were Sinc functions. The necessary conditions were investigated to get
an approximate solution with an exponential convergence rate. To verify the efficiency of the
method, some numerical test examples were introduced in the last section.
The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for their constructive comments and
suggestions. Many thanks are due to financial support from the Iran University of Science and
Technology and Mazandaran University of Iran.

References
1. A. Friedman, Partial differential equations of parabolic type, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1964.
2. J. R. Cannon, The one dimensional heat equation, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1984.
3. V. Isakov, Inverse problems for partial differential equations, Springer, New York, 1998.
4. A. Ebel and T. Davitashvili, Air, water and soil quality modelling for risk and impact assessment,
Springer, Dordrecht, 2007.
5. W. Cheng, L. Zhao, and C. L. Fu, Source term identification for an axisymmetric inverse heat conduction
problem, Comput Math Appl 59 (2010), 142148.
6. O. A. Ladyzhenskaya, V. A. Solonnikov, and N. N. Uraltseva, Linear and quasilinear equations of
parabolic type, AMS, Providence, Rhode Island, 1968, p 648.
7. V. L. Kamynin, The unique solvability of an inverse problem for parabolic equations under a final
overdetermination condition, Math Notes 73 (2003), 202211.
8. J. R. Cannon and P. Duchateau, Structural identification of an unknown source term in a heat equation,
Inverse Probs 14 (1998), 535551.
9. E. G. Savateev, On problems of determining the source function in a parabolic equation, J Inverse
Ill-Posed Problems 3 (1995), 83102.
10. A. Farcas and D. Lesnic, The boundary-element method for the determination of a heat source dependent
on one variable, J Eng Math 54 (2006), 375388.
11. T. Johansson and D. Lesnic, Determination of a spacewise dependent heat source, J Comput Appl Math
209 (2007), 6680.
12. F. Geng and Y. Lin, Application of the variational iteration method to inverse heat source problems,
Comput Math Appl 58 (2009), 20982102.
13. A. Shidfar, A. Babaei, and A. Molabahrami, Solving the inverse problem of identifying an unknown
source term in a parabolic equation, Comput Math Appl 60 (2010), 12091213.
14. F. Stenger, A Sinc-Galerkin method of solution of boundary value problems, Math Comp 33 (1979),
85109.
15. F. Stenger, Numerical methods based on sinc and analytic functions, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1993.
16. J. Lund and K. L. Bowers, Sinc methods for quadrature and differential equations, SIAM, Philadelphia,
1992.
17. D. L. Lewis, J. Lund, and K. L. Bowers, The space-time Sinc-Galerkin method for parabolic problems,
Int J Numer Methods Engrg 24 (1987), 16291644.
18. K. L. Bowers, T. S. Carlson, and J. Lund, Advection-diffusion equations: temporal sinc methods, Numer
Meth Partial Diff Eq 11 (1995), 399422.
Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num

78

SHIDFAR AND BABAEI

19. S. Koonprasert and K. L. Bowers, The fully Sinc-Galerkin method for time-dependent boundary
conditions, Numer Meth Partial Diff Eq 20 (2004), 494526.
20. A. Shidfar and R. Zolfaghari, Determination of an unknown function in a parabolic inverse problem by
Sinc-collocation method, Numer Meth Partial Diff Eq 27 (2011), 15841598.
21. D. S. Gilliam, J. R. Lund, and C. F. Martin, A discrete sampling inversion scheme for the heat equation,
Numer Math 54 (1989), 493506.
22. C. Lanczos, Applied analysis, Dover Publications (Reprint of 1956 Prentice-Hall ed.), New York, 1988.
23. A. N. Tikhonov and V. Y. Arsenin, Solutions of ill-posed problems, Winston and sons, Washington,
D. C., 1977.
24. P. C. Hansen, Rank-Defficient and Discrete Ill-Posed Problems, SIAM, Philadelphia, 1998.
25. P. C. Hansen, Analysis of discrete ill-posed problems by means of the L-curve, SIAM Rev 34 (1992),
561580.
26. P. C. Hansen and D. P. OLeary, The use of the L-curve in the regularization of discrete ill-posed
problems, SIAM J Sci Comput 14 (1993), 14871503.

Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations DOI 10.1002/num