Open AccessTime‐lapse traveltime change of singly scattered acoustic waves
Author(s) -
Pacheco C.,
Snieder R.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
geophysical journal international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.302
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1365-246X
pISSN - 0956-540X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-246x.2006.02856.x
Subject(s) - seismogram , scattering , wave propagation , homogeneous , geology , born approximation , physics , computational physics , geophysics , optics , seismology , statistical physics
SUMMARY We present a technique based on the single‐scattering approximation that relates time‐lapse localized changes in the propagation velocity to changes in the traveltime of singly scattered waves. We describe wave propagation in a random medium with homogeneous statistical properties as a single‐scattering process where the fluctuations of the velocity with respect to the background velocity are assumed to be weak. This corresponds to one of two end‐member regimes of wave propagation in a random medium, the first being single scattering, and the second multiple scattering. We present a formulation that relates the change in the traveltime of the scattered waves to a localized change in the propagation velocity by means of the Born approximation for the scattered wavefield. We validate the methodology with synthetic seismograms calculated with finite differences for 2‐D acoustic waves. Potential applications of this technique include non‐destructive evaluation of heterogeneous materials and time‐lapse monitoring of heterogeneous reservoirs.