Plane-wave Least-squares Reverse Time Migration

Least-squares reverse time migration is formulated with a new parameterization, where the migration image of each shot is updated separately and a prestack image is produced with common image gathers. The advantage is that it can offer stable convergence for least-squares migration even when the migration velocity is not completely accurate. To significantly reduce computation cost, linear phase shift encoding is applied to hundreds of shot gathers to produce dozens of planes waves. A regularization term which penalizes the image difference between nearby angles are used to keep the prestack image consistent through all the angles. Numerical tests on a marine dataset is performed to illustrate the advantages of least-squares reverse time migration in the plane-wave domain. Through iterations of least-squares migration, the migration artifacts are reduced and the image resolution is improved. Empirical results suggest that the LSRTM in plane wave domain is an efficient method to improve the image quality and produce common image gathers.