Solution of the nonlinear inverse scattering problem by T-matrix completion. II. Simulations

Reduced inverse Born series: a computational study

We investigate the inverse scattering problem for scalar waves. We report conditions under which the terms in the inverse Born series cancel in pairs, leaving only one term at each order. We refer to the resulting expansion as the reduced inverse Born series. The reduced series can also be derived from a nonperturbative inversion formula. Our results are illustrated by numerical simulations that compare the performance of the reduced series to the full inverse Born series and the Newton-Kantorovich method.

Investigation of the effect of super-resolution in nonlinear inverse scattering

The idea that a solution to a nonlinear inverse scattering problem (ISP) can contain information about the target on a subwavelength scale and thus allow one to achieve super-resolution (spatial resolution beyond the diffraction limit) has been around since the 1990s. However, a solid mathematical theory of super-resolution in nonlinear image reconstruction is still lacking. In this paper, we investigate the effect of super-resolution in nonlinear ISPs (both analytically and numerically) by analyzing several inverse problems in which the limit of spatial resolution can be defined precisely. The conclusions we obtain are not optimistic. Although it is possible to create examples of exactly solvable models in which account of nonlinearity in the ISP results in additional mathematically independent equations (one such example is shown herein), our results indicate that super-resolution is not achievable in any practical sense. Rather, we find that the linear subspace of possible solutions to a band-limited linearized ISP is transformed into a more general curved manifold due to the effects of nonlinearity. In the one-dimensional problem with realistic interaction that we have considered, the manifold can have a slightly smaller dimensionality that the subspace of solutions to the linearized problem but it does not contract to a point and the effect is practically insignificant.

Imaging from the inside out: inverse scattering with photoactivated internal sources

We propose a method to reconstruct the optical properties of a scattering medium with subwavelength resolution. The method is based on the solution to the inverse scattering problem with internal sources. Applications to photoactivated localization microscopy are described.

Solution of the nonlinear inverse scattering problem by T-matrix completion. I. Theory

We propose a conceptually different method for solving nonlinear inverse scattering problems (ISPs) such as are commonly encountered in tomographic ultrasound imaging, seismology, and other applications. The method is inspired by the theory of nonlocality of physical interactions and utilizes the relevant formalism. We formulate the ISP as a problem whose goal is to determine an unknown interaction potential V from external scattering data. Although we seek a local (diagonally dominated) V as the solution to the posed problem, we allow V to be nonlocal at the intermediate stages of iterations. This allows us to utilize the one-to-one correspondence between V and the T matrix of the problem. Here it is important to realize that not every T corresponds to a diagonal V and we, therefore, relax the usual condition of strict diagonality (locality) of V. An iterative algorithm is proposed in which we seek T that is (i) compatible with the measured scattering data and (ii) corresponds to an interaction potential V that is as diagonally dominated as possible. We refer to this algorithm as to the data-compatible T-matrix completion. This paper is Part I in a two-part series and contains theory only. Numerical examples of image reconstruction in a strongly nonlinear regime are given in Part II [H. W. Levinson and V. A. Markel, Phys. Rev. E 94, 043318 (2016)10.1103/PhysRevE.94.043318]. The method described in this paper is particularly well suited for very large data sets that become increasingly available with the use of modern measurement techniques and instrumentation.