Inverse obstacle problem for the non-stationary wave equation with an unknown background

Abstract. We consider boundary measurements for the wave equation on a bounded domain M ⊂ R2 or on a compact Riemannian surface, and intro-duce a method to locate a discontinuity in the wave speed. Assuming that the wave speed consist of an inclusion in a known smooth background, the method can determine the distance from any boundary point to the inclusion. In the case of a known constant background wave speed, the method reconstructs a set contained in the convex hull of the inclusion and containing the inclusion. Even if the background wave speed is unknown, the method can reconstruct the distance from each boundary point to the inclusion assuming that the Rie-mannian metric tensor determined by the wave speed gives simple geometry in M. The method is based on reconstruction of volumes of domains of influ-ence by solving a sequence of linear equations. For τ ∈ C(∂M) the domain of influence M(τ) is the set of those points on the manifold from which the distance to some boundary point x is less than τ(x)