For , put and define the bounded operator
Part (e) shows for every as . Since ,
Choose the a priori rule
Then while
For ,
Thus with this parameter rule is a regularization of an inverse problem.
A regularization of an inverse problem consists of bounded operators and a parameter rule such that, whenever and lies in the domain of ,
as . It is needed because a compact operator on an infinite-dimensional space has singular values tending to zero, so direct inversion divides noisy data by arbitrarily small numbers and is generally discontinuous.
Tikhonov regularization defines
and its normal equation gives
For every fixed , is bounded below by , and the data-to-solution operator is bounded. Small changes in therefore produce small changes in .