
In this paper we consider linear ill-posed problems
where instead of y noisy data yδ are available with
and
is a linear operator between Hilbert spaces X and Y. Assuming the general source condition
with appropriate functions
we study following questions:(i) which (best possible) accuracy can be obtained for identifying x from
under the assumptions
(ii) are there special regularization methods which guarantee this best possible accuracy, i.e., which are optimal on the set Mδ,E? Concerning question (i) we prove that under certain conditions there holds inf sup
with
where the ‘inf’ is taken over all methods
and the 'sup' is taken over all
.and
Concerning question (ii) we prove the optimality of a general class of regularization methods and specify our general optimality results to Tikhonov type methods and to spectral methods. Heat equation problems backward in time which are characterized by different functions
(λ) serve as model examples.