This paper aims to mathematically advance the field of quantitative thermo-acoustic imaging. Given several electromagnetic data sets, we establish for the first time an analytical formula for reconstructing the absorption coefficient from thermal energy measurements. Since the formula involves derivatives of the given data up to the third order, it is unstable in the sense that small measurement noises may cause large errors. However, in the presence of measurement noise, the obtained formula, together with a noise regularization technique, provides a good initial guess for the true absorption coefficient. We finally correct the errors by deriving a reconstruction formula based on the least square solution of an optimal control problem and prove that this optimization step reduces the errors occurring and enhances the resolution.

Let M and N be two compact complex manifolds. We show that if the tautological line bundle O_{T^∗}M(1) is not pseudo-effective and O_{T^∗}N(1) is nef, then there is no non-constant holomorphic map from M to N. In particular, we prove that any holomorphic map from a compact complex manifold M with RC-positive tangent bundle to a compact complex manifold N with nef cotangent bundle must be a constant map. As an application, we obtain that there is no non-constant holomorphic map from a compact Hermitian manifold with positive holomorphic sectional curvature to a Hermitian manifold with non-positive holomorphic bisectional curvature.

We consider the optimization approach to the acousto-electric imaging problem. Assuming that the electric conductivity distribution is a small perturbation of a constant, we investigate the least-squares estimate analytically using (multiple) Fourier series, and confirm the widely observed fact that acousto-electric imaging has high resolution and is statistically stable. We also analyze the case of partial data and the case of limited-view data, in which some singularities of the conductivity can still be imaged.

Let M be a compact Riemannian manifold, π : \tilde{M} → M be the universal covering and ω be a smooth 2-form on M with π^∗ω cohomologous to zero. Suppose the fundamental group π_1(M) satisfies certain radial quadratic (resp. linear) isoperimetric inequality, we show that there exists a smooth 1-form η on \tilde{M} of linear (resp. bounded) growth such that π^∗ω = dη. As applications, we prove that on a compact Kahler manifold (M,ω) with π^∗ω cohomologous to zero, if π_1(M) is CAT(0) or automatic (resp. hyperbolic), then M is Kahler non-elliptic (resp. Kahler hyperbolic) and the Euler characteristic (−1)^{dim_RM/2χ(M) ≥ 0 (resp. >0).

We consider an elliptic pseudo-differential equation with a highly oscillating linear potential modeled as a stationary ergodic random field. The random field is a function composed with a centered long-range correlated Gaussian process. In the limiting of vanishing correlation length, the heterogeneous solution converges to a deterministic solution obtained by averaging the random potential. We characterize the deterministic and stochastic correctors. With proper rescaling, the mean-zero stochastic corrector converges to a Gaussian random process in probability and weakly in the spatial variables. In addition, for two prototype equations involving the Laplacian and the fractional Laplacian operators, we prove that the limit holds in distribution in some Hilbert spaces. We also determine the size of the deterministic corrector when it is larger than the stochastic corrector. Depending on the correlation structure of the random field and on the singularities of the Green’s function, we show that either the deterministic or the random part of the corrector dominates.