A trajectory mechanics approach for the study of wave propagation in an anisotropic elastic medium

We derive equations describing the path and traveltime of a coherent elastic wave propagating in an anisotropic medium, generalizing expressions from conventional high-frequency asymptotic ray theory. The methodology is valid across a broad range of frequencies and allows for subwavelength variations in the material properties of the medium. The primary difference from current ray methods is the retention of a term that is neglected in the derivation of the eikonal equation. The additional term contains spatial derivatives of the properties of the medium and of the amplitude field, and its presence couples the equations governing the evolution of the amplitude and phase along the trajectory. The magnitude of this term provides a measure of the validity of expressions based upon high-frequency asymptotic methods, such as the eikonal equation, when modelling wave propagation dominated by a band of frequencies. In calculations involving a layer with gradational boundaries, we find that asymptotic estimates do deviate from those of our frequency-dependent approach when the width of the layer boundaries become sufficiently narrow. For example, for a layer with boundaries that vary over tens of meters, the term neglected by a high-frequency asymptotic approximation is significant for frequencies around 10 Hz. The visible differences in the paths of the rays that traverse the layer substantiate this conclusion. For a velocity model derived from an observed well log, the majority of the trajectories calculated using the extended approach, accounting for the frequency-dependence of the rays, are noticeably different from those produced by the eikonal equation. A suite of paths from a source to a specified receiver, calculated for a range of frequencies between 10 and 100 Hz, define a region of sensitivity to velocity variations and may be used for an augmented form of tomographic imaging

Modeling and inversion of seismic data using multiple scattering, renormalization and homotopy methods

Seismic scattering theory plays an important role in seismic forward modeling and is the theoretical foundation for various seismic imaging methods. Full waveform inversion is a powerful technique for obtaining a high-resolution model of the subsurface. One objective of this thesis is to develop convergent scattering series solutions of the Lippmann-Schwinger equation in strongly scattering media using renormalization and homotopy methods. Other objectives of this thesis are to develop efficient full waveform inversion methods of time-lapse seismic data and, to investigate uncertainty quantification in full waveform inversion for anisotropic elastic media based on integral equation approaches and the iterated extended Kalman filter. The conventional Born scattering series is obtained by expanding the Lippmann-Schwinger equation in terms of an iterative solution based on perturbation theory. Such an expansion assumes weak scattering and may have the problems of convergence in strongly scattering media. This thesis presents two scattering series, referred to as convergent Born series (CBS) and homotopy analysis method (HAM) scattering series for frequency-domain seismic wave modeling. For the convergent Born series, a physical interpretation from the renormalization prospective is given. The homotopy scattering series is derived by using homotopy analysis method, which is based on a convergence control parameter $h$ and a convergence control operator $H$ that one can use to ensure convergence for strongly scattering media. The homotopy scattering scattering series solutions of the Lippmann-Schwinger equation, which is convergent in strongly scattering media. The homotopy scattering series is a kind of unified scattering series theory that includes the conventional and convergent Born series as special cases. The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is employed for efficient implementation of matrix-vector multiplication for the convergent Born series and the homotopy scattering series. This thesis presents homotopy methods for ray based seismic modeling in strongly anisotropic media. To overcome several limitations of small perturbations and weak anisotropy in obtaining the traveltime approximations in anisotropic media by expanding the anisotropic eikonal equation in terms of the anisotropic parameters and the elliptically anisotropic eikonal equation based on perturbation theory, this study applies the homotopy analysis method to the eikonal equation. Then this thesis presents a retrieved zero-order deformation equation that creates a map from the anisotropic eikonal equation to a linearized partial differential equation system. The new traveltime approximations are derived by using the linear and nonlinear operators in the retrieved zero-order deformation equation. Flexibility on variable anisotropy parameters is naturally incorporated into the linear differential equations, allowing a medium of arbitrarily anisotropy. This thesis investigates efficient target-oriented inversion strategies for improving full waveform inversion of time-lapse seismic data based on extending the distorted Born iterative T-matrix inverse scattering to a local inversion of a small region of interest (e. g. reservoir under production). The target-oriented approach is more efficient for inverting the monitor data. The target-oriented inversion strategy requires properly specifying the wavefield extrapolation operators in the integral equation formulation. By employing the T-matrix and the Gaussian beam based Green’s function, the wavefield extrapolation for the time-lapse inversion is performed in the baseline model from the survey surface to the target region. I demonstrate the method by presenting numerical examples illustrating the sequential and double difference strategies. To quantify the uncertainty and multiparameter trade-off in the full waveform inversion for anisotropic elastic media, this study applies the iterated extended Kalman filter to anisotropic elastic full waveform inversion based on the integral equation method. The sensitivity matrix is an explicit representation with Green’s functions based on the nonlinear inverse scattering theory. Taking the similarity of sequential strategy between the multi-scale frequency domain full waveform inversion and data assimilation with an iterated extended Kalman filter, this study applies the explicit representation of sensitivity matrix to the the framework of Bayesian inference and then estimate the uncertainties in the full waveform inversion. This thesis gives results of numerical tests with examples for anisotropic elastic media. They show that the proposed Bayesian inversion method can provide reasonable reconstruction results for the elastic coefficients of the stiffness tensor and the framework is suitable for accessing the uncertainties and analysis of parameter trade-offs

Linearized inverse scattering based on seismic Reverse Time Migration

In this paper we study the linearized inverse problem associated with imaging of reflection seismic data. We introduce an inverse scattering transform derived from reverse-time migration (RTM). In the process, the explicit evaluation of the so-called normal operator is avoided, while other differential and pseudodifferential operator factors are introduced. We prove that, under certain conditions, the transform yields a partial inverse, and support this with numerical simulations. In addition, we explain the recently discussed 'low-frequency artifacts' in RTM, which are naturally removed by the new method