Dispersion analysis of an average-derivative optimal scheme for Laplace-domain scalar wave equation

Laplace-domain modeling is an important foundation of Laplace-domain full-waveform inversion. However, dispersion analysis for Laplace-domain numerical schemes has not been completely established. This hampers the construction and optimization of Laplace-domain modeling schemes. By defining a pseudowavelength as a scaled skin depth, I establish a method for Laplace-domain numerical dispersion analysis that is parallel to its frequency-domain counterpart. This method is then applied to an average-derivative nine-point scheme for Laplace-domain scalar wave equation. Within the relative error of 1%, the Laplace-domain average-derivative optimal scheme requires four grid points per smallest pseudowavelength, whereas the classic five-point scheme requires 13 grid points per smallest pseudowavelength for general directional sampling intervals. The average-derivative optimal scheme is more accurate than the classic five-point scheme for the same sampling intervals. By using much smaller sampling intervals, the classic five-point scheme can approach the accuracy of the average-derivative optimal scheme, but the corresponding cost is much higher in terms of storage requirement and computational time.