A Bayesian approach with Gaussian priors to the inverse problem of source identification in elliptic PDEs

Abstract: We consider the statistical linear inverse problem of making inference on an unknown source function in an elliptic partial differential equation from noisy observations of its solution. We employ nonparametric Bayesian procedures based on Gaussian priors, leading to convenient conjugate formulae for posterior inference. We review recent results providing theoretical guarantees on the quality of the resulting posterior-based estimation and uncertainty quantification, and we discuss the application of the theory to the important classes of Gaussian series priors defined on the Dirichlet-Laplacian eigenbasis and Mat\'ern process priors. We provide an implementation of posterior inference for both classes of priors, and investigate its performance in a numerical simulation study.