Imaging conditions for prestack reverse-time migration

Abstract

Numerical implementations of six imaging conditions for prestack reverse-time migration show widely differing ability to provide accurate, angle-dependent estimates of reflection coefficients. Evaluation is in the context of a simple, one-interface acoustic model. Only reflection coefficients estimated by normalization of a crosscorrelation image by source illumination or by receiver-/source-wavefield amplitude ratio have the correct angle dependence, scale factor, and sign and the required (dimensionless) units; thus, these are the preferred imaging-condition algorithms. To obtain accurate image amplitudes, source- and receiver-wavefield extrapolations must be able to accurately reconstruct their respective wavefields at the target reflector.