A generalization of Cooke's integral inversion formula with application to remote-sensing theory

摘要

The remote sensing of environmental particulate pollutants, particularly their size distribution, frequently leads to the solution of first-kind Fredholm integral equations. The corresponding physical kernel tends to smooth the behavior of the required function for all values of the dependent variable. Thus, the problem is ill posed and needs regularization by the introduction of constraints on the solution (closure condition). However, under physically realistic conditions, the original problem can be transformed so that it presents a unique and stable solution. One such condition is the so-called anomalous-diffraction approximation, for which we provide two alternate inversion formulae. We derive a new inversion formula (see our theorem) which generalizes that of Cooke and which also provides, as a special case, one of Titchmarsh's formulae. We propose a unifying viewpoint for a number of known integral inversion formulae, including those of Fox (his first theorem), Hardy, Hankel, Titchmarsh, Cooke, and our own, along with the mutual interrelationships that exist between them (Fig. 1 and Table 1). One solution to the particulate sounding problem is then obtained from a direct application of our formula [Eq. (25)]. An alternate solution is likewise obtained by applying Titchmarsh's formula (II) [Eq. (27)]. Both solutions can be independently recovered from Fox's first theorem, although under somewhat more restrictive conditions. They are shown to be identical, and to provide the unique solution to the remote sensing problem considered.