Determination of initial data for a reaction-diffusion system with variable coefficients

In this paper, we study a final value problem for a reaction-diffusion system with time and space dependent diffusion coefficients. In general, the inverse problem of identifying the initial data is not well-posed, and herein the Hadamard-instability occurs. Applying a new version of a modified quasi-reversibility method, we propose a stable approximate (regularized) problem. The existence, uniqueness and stability of the corresponding regularized problem are obtained. Furthermore, we also investigate the error estimate and show that the approximate solution converges to the exact solution in L₂ and 0H₁ norms. Our method can be applied to some concrete models that arise in biology, chemical engineering, etc.