Pure quasi-P-wave modeling and imaging using an approximated space- domain pseudo-differential operator in vertical transverse isotropy media

Incorporating anisotropy in seismic modeling and imaging is important to produce the correct locations of subsurface reflectors. Traditional wave equations for quasi-P-wave in transverse isotropic media either suffer from S-wave artifacts or require complicated and expensive computation strategies. To mitigate this issue, we develop a novel pure quasi-P-wave equation with an approximated space-domain pseudo-differential operator in the vertical transverse isotropic (VTI) medium. For the pure quasi-P-wave equation, we first simplify it to an elliptical anisotropy equation with an addiapproximate the pseudo-differential term with a space-domain convolution operator that is calculated by solving a nonlinear inverse problem. Phase-velocity analysis and numerical modeling show that the new space-domain pseudo-differential operator has good accuracy in describing wave propagation in the VTI medium. In addition, it is more suitable for strate the feasibility and adaptability of our method.