A Gauss–Newton full-waveform inversion for material profile reconstruction in viscoelastic semi-infinite solid media

Abstract

An inversion framework employing a Gauss–Newton method is developed to reconstruct material profiles in heterogeneous, viscoelastic, semi-infinite domains. In particular, a full-waveform inversion approach is investigated to image the elastic and attenuating parameters of a layered media. To account for the viscoelasticity of the medium, a Generalized Maxwell Body with one spring and two Maxwell elements in parallel (GMB2) is adopted in the forward and inverse wave propagation problems. Perfectly-matched-layers were introduced as wave absorbing buffers to simulate the semi-infinite extent of the domain. Using transient wave equations endowed with the GMB2 constitutive relation and the PML, a partial-differential-equations-constrained optimization scheme was implemented that lead to classic KKT (Karush–Kuhn–Tucker) conditions including time-dependent state, adjoint, and time-invariant control problems. An optimal solution of the viscoelastic parameters was obtained using a reduced-space approach based on a line search algorithm where the search direction was computed by the Gauss–Newton method. Considerable improvements on the accuracy and convergence rate of solutions were made by the developed Gauss–Newton inversion procedure compared to previous research using the Fletcher–Reeves method.