Fig.1 Snapshot of seismic wavefield and synthetic seismograms in a heterogeneous medium model generated by CGOPD. (A) Heterogeneous medium model. (B) Snapshot of seismic wavefield generated by CGOPD at time 450 ms. (C) Synthetic seismograms generated by CGOPD

Studying seismic wavefields in the Earth’s interior requires an accurate calculation of wave propagation using accurate and efficient numerical techniques. Professor Li Xiaofan and his group present an alternative method for accurately and efficiently modeling seismic wavefields using a convolutional generalized orthogonal polynomial differentiator. This approach uses optimization and truncation to form a localized operator. This preserves the fine structure of the wavefield in complex media and avoids non-causal interaction when parameter discontinuities are present in the medium. They demonstrate this approach for scalar wavefield modeling in heterogeneous media and conclude that the method could be readily extended to elastic wavefield calculations. The numerical results indicate that this method can suppress numerical dispersion and allow for the study of wavefields in heterogeneous structures. The results hold promise not only for future seismic studies, but also for any field that requires high-precision numerical solution of partial differential equation with variable coefficients.

Their paper is published at Computer Physics Communications recently. Li et al. Seismic scalar wave equation with variable coefficients modeling by a new convolutional differentiator. Computer Physics Communications, 2010, 181: 1850-1858　 Downlod Here