Applied Maths Seminar: Hawkins -- Surrogate Bayesian inversion algorithms for wave propagation

Next week, Stuart Hawkins (Macquarie University) will come and give a talk on Wednesday
21 May at 11am in Carslaw 273 (note unusual room).  Afterwards we will go to lunch (free
for students).  

Title: Surrogate Bayesian inversion algorithms for wave propagation 

Abstract: We present a Bayesian based approach for some classical wave-propagation
inverse problems involving reconstructing characteristics of one or more objects from
scattered-field data obtained by illuminating the objects with plane waves.  Our method
is based on incorporating the data into a Bayesian framework and sampling the resulting
posterior probability distribution using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method.  The
mathematical model associated with the forward problem is the Helmholtz equation, posed
in the unbounded region outside the objects, whose morphology is parametrised by a
vector in a high-dimensional space associated with the Bayesian prior distribution.  The
key to our approach is to accelerate the MCMC sampling using an efficient surrogate for
the forward problem.