LAUSR

Abstract In this article, an explicit Lie-group shooting method (LGSM) is developed to solve the time-dependent heat source and the initial data for backward heat conduction problems. To recover both unknown data simultaneously, it is very difficult to obtain a stable solution by explicit or implicit schemes. To solve these problems by using conventional numerical schemes, numerical iterative regularization techniques and numerical integration techniques are necessary. To avoid these numerical techniques and to increase the computational efficiency, an explicit LGSM is developed. According to the solution of the quadratic equation of the LGSM, the initial condition can be directly obtained by using the final condition and boundary conditions at the initial time and final time. Using the reciprocal relationship of the solutions for the initial condition and the final condition, the proposed algorithm can avoid numerical integration and numerical iteration. Additionally, a closed-form formula from a two-point Lie-group equation can be directly used to calculate the heat source term. To illustrate the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed algorithm, several benchmarks are tested. The numerical results indicate that the proposed algorithm can achieve an efficient and stable solution, even with noisy measurement data, by comparing the estimation results with the existing literature.