Source Synthesis for Waveform Inversion

Seismologists have long used extended sources, both physical and synthetic, to enhance the effectiveness of data acquisition and processing in various ways. Recently, extended synthetic sources have been suggested as a means to substantially reduce the computational complexity of waveform inversion. Most proposed synthetic sources for waveform inversion are random in some way. In contrast, I suggest a deterministic choice of extended source, one that maximizes the difference between data predicted by the current inversion iterate and data synthesized from the target point source records. Optimal source synthesis in this sense has proven effecive in several non-seismic imaging technologies. I will describe the concept, and present some prelimiary evidence concerning its perfomance in inversion of reflection seismograms