ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the problem of limited data (limited view), when transducers cannot be placed around the complete object. This situation is very common in thermoacoustic tomography (TAT), for instance in its applications to breast imaging, where only a half sphere, rather than a sphere is available for placement. The accepted mathematical model of TAT involves quite a few physical constants. TAT employs the well-known correlation between electromagnetic (EM) absorption of biological tissue and its physiological and pathological properties. In TAT with a planar configuration, detections are implemented on a part of a line or a plane where the scanning view is quite limited; consequently, artifacts and interface blurring appear in the reconstructed images. The chapter illustrates theoretical analysis and conclusions with reconstructions from both synthetic and experimental TAT data. It describes the model and reviews the existing uniqueness results, reconstruction formulas, and procedures for the full data view problem.
