Band-limited Ray-tracing through Rugose Interfaces

Standard ray-tracing is a very efficient way of approximating wave propagation for small wavelengths, or, equivalently, high frequencies. Furthermore, it is still valid when the medium parameters and the wavefields are smooth on the scalelength of the width of the Fresnel volume (Kravtsov and Orlov, 1990). Standard ray-tracing validity conditions break down in the vicinity of an interface when there is high contrast between the two sides of the interface and/or the interface has a complex structure. In this study, we present a new band-limited ray-tracing method that aims to overcome some of the limitations of standard high-frequency ray tracing in complex velocity models that contain complex interfaces. With a modest increase in computational cost, the method presented captures the wave kinematics that are comparable to finite-difference wave propagation with higher fidelity while staying within the ray-tracing framework, without requiring processing or alteration to the original model.