Application of backus-gilbert inversion technique to determination of aerosol size distributions from optical scattering measurements

The inversion technique of Backus and Gilbert is applied to the determination of size distributions of spherical particles from optical scattering measurements. The spatial resolution inherent in a set of multiwavelength measurements is studied as a function of number of measurements, measurement noise level, and radius. The inversion technique is then applied to computer simulated intensity data to recover size distributions. These examples indicate that the distribution can be recovered at selected points without using a priori assumptions about the shape of the distribution.