Tikhonov-type regularization of linear and nonlinear ill-posed problems in abstract spaces under sparsity constraints gained relevant attention in the past years. Since under some weak assumptions all regularized solutions are sparse if the l1-norm is used as penalty term, the l1-regularization was studied by numerous authors although the non-reflexivity of the Banach space l1 and the fact that such penalty functional is not strictly convex lead to serious difficulties. We consider the case that the sparsity assumption is narrowly missed. This means that the solutions may have an infinite number of nonzero but fast decaying components. For that case we formulate and prove convergence rates results for the l1-regularization of nonlinear operator equations. In this context, we outline the situations of Hölder rates and of an exponential decay of the solution components.

Wir betrachten die lineare inverse Probleme mit gestörter rechter Seite und gestörtem Operator in Hilberträumen, die inkorrekt sind. Um die Auswirkung der Inkorrektheit zu verringen, müssen spezielle Lösungsmethode angewendet werden, hier nutzen wir die sogenannte Tikhonov Regularisierungsmethode. Die Regularisierungsparameter wählen wir aus das verallgemeinerte Defektprinzip. Eine typische numerische Methode zur Lösen der nichtlinearen äquivalenten Defektgleichung ist Newtonverfahren. Wir schreiben einen Algorithmus, die global und monoton konvergent für beliebige Startwerte garantiert. Um die Stabilität zu garantieren, benutzen wir die Glattheit der Lösung, dann erhalten wir eine sogenannte bedingte Stabilität. Wir demonstrieren die sogenannte Interpolationsmethode zur Herleitung von bedingten Stabilitätsabschätzungen bei inversen Problemen für partielle Differentialgleichungen.

Humanitarian clearance of minefields is most often carried out by hand, conventionally using a a metal detector and a probe. Detection is a very slow process, as every piece of detected metal must treated as if it were a landmine and carefully probed and excavated, while many of them are not. The process can be safely sped up by use of Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) to image the subsurface, to verify metal detection results and safely ignore any objects which could not possibly be a landmine. In this thesis, we explore the possibility of using Full Wave Inversion (FWI) to improve GPR imaging for landmine detection. Posing the imaging task as FWI means solving the large-scale, non-linear and ill-posed optimisation problem of determining the physical parameters of the subsurface (such as electrical permittivity) which would best reproduce the data. This thesis begins by giving an overview of all the mathematical and implementational aspects of FWI, so as to provide an informative text for both mathematicians (perhaps already familiar with other inverse problems) wanting to contribute to the mine detection problem, as well as a wider engineering audience (perhaps already working on GPR or mine detection) interested in the mathematical study of inverse problems and FWI.We present the first numerical 3D FWI results for GPR, and consider only surface measurements from small-scale arrays as these are suitable for our application. The FWI problem requires an accurate forward model to simulate GPR data, for which we use a hybrid finite-element boundary-integral solver utilising first order curl-conforming N\'d\'{e}lec (edge) elements. We present a novel `line search' type algorithm which prioritises inversion of some target parameters in a region of interest (ROI), with the update outside of the area defined implicitly as a function of the target parameters. This is particularly applicable to the mine detection problem, in which we wish to know more about some detected metallic objects, but are not interested in the surrounding medium. We may need to resolve the surrounding area though, in order to account for the target being obscured and multiple scattering in a highly cluttered subsurface. We focus particularly on spatial sensitivity of the inverse problem, using both a singular value decomposition to analyse the Jacobian matrix, as well as an asymptotic expansion involving polarization tensors describing the perturbation of electric field due to small objects. The latter allows us to extend the current theory of sensitivity in for acoustic FWI, based on the Born approximation, to better understand how polarization plays a role in the 3D electromagnetic inverse problem. Based on this asymptotic approximation, we derive a novel approximation to the diagonals of the Hessian matrix which can be used to pre-condition the GPR FWI problem.

Wir betrachten die lineare inverse Probleme mit gestörter rechter Seite und gestörtem Operator in Hilberträumen, die inkorrekt sind. Um die Auswirkung der Inkorrektheit zu verringen, müssen spezielle Lösungsmethode angewendet werden, hier nutzen wir die sogenannte Tikhonov Regularisierungsmethode. Die Regularisierungsparameter wählen wir aus das verallgemeinerte Defektprinzip. Eine typische numerische Methode zur Lösen der nichtlinearen äquivalenten Defektgleichung ist Newtonverfahren. Wir schreiben einen Algorithmus, die global und monoton konvergent für beliebige Startwerte garantiert. Um die Stabilität zu garantieren, benutzen wir die Glattheit der Lösung, dann erhalten wir eine sogenannte bedingte Stabilität. Wir demonstrieren die sogenannte Interpolationsmethode zur Herleitung von bedingten Stabilitätsabschätzungen bei inversen Problemen für partielle Differentialgleichungen.