An adaptive subdivision algorithm for the identification of the diffusion coefficient in two-dimensional elliptic problems

In this work, we consider the identification problem of the diffusion coefficient in two-dimensional elliptic equations. For parameterization, we use the zonation method: the diffusion coefficient is assumed to be a piecewise constant space function and unknowns are both the diffusion coefficient values and the geometry of the zones. An algorithm based on geometric principles is developed in order to determine the boundaries between the zones. This algorithm uses the refinement indicators which are easily computed from the gradient of the objective function. The efficiency of the algorithm is proved by testing it in some simple cases with and without noise on the data.