Ray‐theory Green's function reciprocity and ray‐centred coordinates in anisotropic media

Abstract

Lighthill and others have expressed the ray‐theory limit of Green's function for a point source in a homogeneous anisotropic medium in terms of the slowness‐surface Gaussian curvature. Using this form we are able to match with ray theory for inhomogeneous media so that the final solution does not depend on arbitrarily chosen ‘ray coordinates’ or ‘ray parameters’ (e.g. take‐off angles at the source). The reciprocity property is clearly displayed by this ‘ray‐coordinate‐free’ solution. The matching can be performed straightforwardly using global Cartesian coordinates. However, the ‘ray‐centred’ coordinate system (not to be confused with ‘ray coordinates’) is useful in analysing diffraction problems because it involves 2 times 2 matrices not 3 times 3 matrices. We explore ray‐centred coordinates in anisotropic media and show how the usual six characteristic equations for three dimensions can be reduced to four, which in turn can be derived from a new Hamiltonian. The corresponding form of the ray‐theory Green's function is obtained. This form is applied in a companion paper. Copyright © 1992, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved