First-order and second-order adjoint methods for parameter identification problems with an application to the elasticity imaging inverse problem

We devise a fast and reliable computational framework for the elasticity imaging inverse problem of detecting cancerous tumors in the human body using an output least-squares (OLS) approach. From a mathematical standpoint, this inverse problem requires identifying a parameter in a mixed variational problem. We develop, in a continuous setting, a first-order adjoint method and two second-order adjoint methods. The continuous formulae are then used to devise a scheme for an efficient computation of the gradient and the Hessian of the OLS objective. We give detailed numerical examples.