The Laguerre finite difference one-way equation solver

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel finite difference method using Laguerre transform for solving the 2D one-way wave equation, achieving higher accuracy and lower noise in seismic imaging compared to Fourier-based methods.

Contribution

The paper proposes a new Laguerre transform-based finite difference algorithm that improves accuracy and reduces noise in seismic wavefield computations, outperforming Fourier-based spectral methods.

Findings

Higher accuracy in wavefield calculations.

Reduced numerical noise and artifacts.

Improved seismic imaging quality.

Abstract

This paper presents a new finite difference algorithm for solving the 2D one-way wave equation with a preliminary approximation of a pseudo-differential operator by a system of partial differential equations. As opposed to the existing approaches, the integral Laguerre transform instead of Fourier transform is used. After carrying out the approximation of spatial variables it is possible to obtain systems of linear algebraic equations with better computing properties and to reduce computer costs for their solution. High accuracy of calculations is attained at the expense of employing finite difference approximations of higher accuracy order that are based on the dispersion-relationship-preserving method and the Richardson extrapolation in the downward continuation direction. The numerical experiments have verified that as compared to the spectral difference method based on Fourier transform, the new algorithm allows one to calculate wave fields with a higher degree of accuracy and a lower level of numerical noise and artifacts including those for non-smooth velocity models. In the context of solving the geophysical problem the post-stack migration for velocity models of the types Syncline and Sigsbee2A has been carried out. It is shown that the images obtained contain lesser noise and are considerably better focused as compared to those obtained by the known Fourier Finite Difference and Phase-Shift Plus Interpolation methods. There is an opinion that purely finite difference approaches do not allow carrying out the seismic migration procedure with sufficient accuracy, however the results obtained disprove this statement. For the supercomputer implementation it is proposed to use the parallel dichotomy algorithm when solving systems of linear algebraic equations with block-tridiagonal matrices.