Polarity-reversal correction for vector-based elastic reverse time migration

Abstract

Polarity reversal is a well-known problem in elastic reverse time migration, and it is closely related to the imaging conditions. The dot product of source and receiver wavefields is a stable and efficient way to construct scalar imaging conditions for decomposed elastic vector wavefields. However, for PP images, the dot product introduces an angle-dependent factor that will change the polarity of image amplitudes at large opening angles, and it is also contaminated by low-wavenumber artifacts when sharp contrasts exist in the velocity model. Those two problems can be suppressed by muting the reflections with large opening angles at the expense of losing useful information. We have developed an elastic inverse-scattering imaging condition that can retain the initial polarity of the image amplitude and significantly reduce the low-wavenumber noise. For PS images, much attention is paid to the polarity-reversal problem at the normal incidence, and the dot-product-based imaging condition successfully avoids this kind of polarity reversal. There is another polarity-reversal problem arising from the sign change of the PS reflection coefficient at the Brewster angle. However, this sign change is often neglected in the construction of a stacked PS image, which will lead to reversed or distorted phases after stacking. We suggested using the S-wave impedance kernel used in elastic full-waveform inversion but only in the PS mode as an alternative to the dot-product imaging condition to alleviate this kind of polarity-reversal problem. In addition to dot-product-based imaging conditions, we analytically compare divergence- and curl-based imaging conditions and the elastic energy norm-based imaging condition with the presented imaging conditions to identify their advantages and weaknesses. Two numerical examples on a two-layer model and the SEAM 2D model are used to illustrate the effectiveness and advantages of the presented imaging conditions in suppressing low-wavenumber noise and correcting the polarity-reversal problem.