Attenuation-compensated viscoelastic reverse time migration with finite-difference operators

ABSTRACT The constant-Q viscoelastic wave equation, which includes decoupled amplitude attenuation and phase dispersion terms, is commonly used for attenuation-compensated reverse time migration (RTM). However, this equation involves fractional Laplacian operators and typically requires computationally intensive spectral methods. Efficient implementation is crucial for practical applications. To address this, we derive a new isotropic viscoelastic wave equation based on the standard linear solid model, which also contains decoupled amplitude attenuation and phase dispersion terms. This new equation can be solved using an efficient finite-difference method in the time domain. Consequently, we develop a viscoelastic RTM with attenuation compensation. Numerical simulations demonstrate that this equation accurately and efficiently simulates the decoupled amplitude loss and phase dispersion characteristics.