Seminari: Inverse problems associated to geophysical prospecting

We are pleased to invite you to an upcoming lecture series led by Dr. Raffaele Persico. Beyond pure geophysics, the course tòpics (focused on ill-posed inverse problems, applied electromagnetics, signal processing, and international academic exchange) are directly relevant to researchers and professionals in the following fields:

• Civil and structural engineering: specialists in non-destructive testing (NDT) of infrastructure (bridges, roads, tunnels, buildings) and structural health monitoring.
• Archaeology and cultural heritage: researchers involved in non-invasive prospection, subsurface mapping, and preserving heritage sites through remote sensing.
• Telecommunications and electromagnetic engineering: profiles focused on antenna design, wave propagation, scattering theory, and radar systems.
• Applied and computational mathematics: mathematicians working on inverse problems, regularization techniques, numerical optimization, and ill-posed systems.
• Signal and image processing: researchers developing algorithms for data filtering, tomographic reconstruction, and complex data imaging.
• Geology and environmental earth sciences: earth scientists working on near-surface characterization, hydrogeology, hazards, and shallow subsurface mapping.
• Early-career STEM researchers (master, PhD and Postdoc): students across science and engineering looking for international research mobility, academic exchange stays, and collaborative networking between the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and the Università della Calabria.

The sessions will provide deep insights into foundational and cutting-edge topics, including:

• Core theoretical concepts: in-depth analysis of key electromagnetic and geophysical challenges, focusing on the ill-posedness of inverse problems.
• Current research frontiers: presentations of recent scientific developments and state-of-the-art methodologies.
• Academic and cultural exchange: opportunities to explore research and teaching approaches between the University of Calabria and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.
• Future mobility and collaboration: discussions on fostering international mobility and exchange visits for early-career researchers between both institutions.

Description of the lessons:

1. Retrieving of the electromagnetic characteristics of the soil.
   Cooperative targets, ground truthing, TDR data, diffraction hyperbolas in common offset and common mid-point, diffraction curves in a layered medium, with flat and non-flat interfaces between the layers.
2. Scattering Equations.
   Green’s function and 2D scattering equations retrieved from the Maxwell’s equations.
3. Diffraction Tomography and Migration Algorithms
   Diffraction Tomography and spatial filtering properties of the scattering operator in a homogeneous soil. 2D migration algorithms in frequency and time domain.
4. Inverse scattering.
   Ill-posedness and non-linearity of the inverse scattering problem. Linear inverse scattering with the method of the moments. Shifting zoom for large investigation domains.
5. Least square solution: data weighting and regularization.
   Average value and variance of each datum. Least square solution and chi-square functional. Eigenvalues and eigenvectors, singular value decomposition and regularization by means of TSVD and by means of the Tichonov method.

Days and rooms:

• Monday September 7th from 09:00 to 12:00 (Room A1-07, first floor, A Building)
• Tuesday September 8th from 09:00 to 12:00 (Room A1-07, first floor, A Building)
• Wednesday September 9th from 09:00 to 12:00 (Room A2-01, second floor, A Building)
• Thursday September 10th from 09:00 to 12:00 (Room A0-02, street floor, A Building)

Whether you are looking to strengthen your theoretical background or connect with international peers for future research stays and joint projects, we strongly encourage you to attend.