Statistical Regularization of Inverse Problems

In experimental sciences we often need to solve inverse problems. That is, we want to obtain information about the internal structure of a physical system from indirect noisy observations. Often the problem is not whether a solution exists; on the contrary, there are too many solutions that fit the data to a chosen tolerance level. The goal is to use prior information to determine a physically meaningful solution. Here, we present some of the basic questions that arise. We describe methods that can be used to find inversion estimates as well as ways to assess their performance.