A new pseudo-acoustic wave equation for TI media

Abstract

We propose a new approximate partial differential equation for qP waves in transversely isotropic (TI) media. We analyse its relationship to other published “pseudo-acoustic” TI equations. All pseudo-acoustic TI wave equations are coupled systems of second-order PDEs in time, derived from the same dispersion relation for qP waves by introducing different auxiliary functions. The new method combines efficient implementation and low artifacts. Modeling and reverse-time migration are shown to validate the wave equation.