Eulerian Gaussian beams for high-frequency wave propagation

Abstract

We design an Eulerian Gaussian beam summation method for solving Helmholtz equations in the high-frequency regime. The traditional Gaussian beam summation method is based on Lagrangian ray tracing and local ray-centered coordinates. We propose a new Eulerian formulation of Gaussian beam theory which adopts global Cartesian coordinates, level sets, and Liouville equations, yielding uniformly distributed Eulerian traveltimes and amplitudes in phase space simultaneously for multiple sources. The time harmonic wavefield can be constructed by summing up Gaussian beams with ingredients provided by the new Eulerian formulation. The conventional Gaussian beam summation method can be derived from the proposed method. There are three advantages of the new method: (1) We have uniform resolution of ray distribution. (2) We can obtain wavefields excited at different sources by varying only source locations in the summation formula. (3) We can obtain wavefields excited at different frequencies by varying only frequencies in the summation formula. Numerical experiments indicate that the Gaussian beam summation method yields accurate asymptotic wavefields even at caustics. The new method may be used for seismic modeling and migration.