Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 January 2013
The paper presents theoretical and numerical results on the identifiability, i.e. theunique identification for the one-dimensional sine-Gordon equation. The identifiabilityfor nonlinear sine-Gordon equation remains an open question. In this paper we establishthe identifiability for a linearized sine-Gordon problem. Our method consists of a carefulanalysis of the Laplace and Fourier transforms of the observation of the system, conductedat a single point. Numerical results based on the best fit to data method confirm that theidentification is unique for a wide choice of initial approximations for the sought testparameters. Numerical results compare the identification for the nonlinear and thelinearized problems.