A strong positivity property and a related inverse source problem for multi-term time-fractional diffusion equations

In this article, we consider the diffusion equation with multi-term time-fractional derivatives. We first derive, by a subordination principle for the solution, that the solution is positive when the initial value is non-negative. As an application, we prove the uniqueness of solution to an inverse problem of determination of the temporally varying source term by integral type information in a subdomain. Finally, several numerical experiments are presented to show the accuracy and efficiency of the algorithm.