On the inverse Cauchy problem for linear ordinary differential equations

International audience; The Cauchy problem characterizes the solutions of a linear ordinary differential equation that satisfies initial conditions. In this paper, we investigate the converse problem, namely, given a function that is known to satisfy a linear ordinary differential equation of a fixed order, determine the coefficients of the ordinary differential equation and the initial conditions. The techniques used to investigate the inverse Cauchy problem come from the algebraic estimation problem introduced by Fliess and Sira-Ramírez. From the perfect observation of the solution, i.e., without external perturbation and noise corrupting it, the initial value problem can be explicitly reconstructed using only iterative indefinite integrals of the solution.