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In the present work the Green’s function of the mild-slope and the modified mild-slope equations is studied. An effective numerical Fourier inversion scheme has been developed and applied to the construction and study of the source-generated water-wave potential over an uneven bottom profile with different depths at infinity. In this sense, the present work is a prerequisite to the study of the diffraction of water waves by localized bed irregularities superimposed over an uneven bottom. In the case of a monotonic bed profile, the main characteristics of the far-field are: (i) the formation of a shadow zone with an ever expanding width, which is located along the bottom irregularity, and (ii) in each of the two sectors not including the bottom irregularity the asymptotic behavior of the wave field approaches the form of an outgoing cylindrical wave, propagating with an amplitude of order O(R−1/2), where R is the distance from the source, and wavelength corresponding to the sector-depth at infinity. Moreover, the weak wave system propagating in the shadow zone is of order O(R−3/2), and along the bottom irregularity consists of the superposition of two outgoing waves with wavelengths corresponding to the two depths at infinity.

Diffraction phenomena caused by edges and vertices are important in a number of studies and applications of wave propagation methods. Diffractions play a fundamental role, for example, in the interpretation of seismic data from faults and other complex geological structures in which petroleum reservoirs are located. The geometric theory of diffraction provides a good description of the diffraction of scalar waves from an edge in a homogeneous medium assuming free or rigid boundary conditions. The solution becomes infinite at the shadow boundary between the illuminated zone and the shadow zone, so that, within this region, a boundary layer solution must be used. This can be achieved by analytic continuation of the geometrical ray solution or, equivalently, using a one-dimensional or two-dimensional diffusion equation for modelling the amplitude of the diffracted wave. An alternative, older method for obtaining asymptotic expressions for different parts of the wavefield is by asymptotic expansion of the Kirchhoff integral. The authors have developed a new reciprocal surface-scattering integral by applying the divergence theorem to the Born volume integral. This new integral is called the Born–Kirchhoff (BK) integral. The scattering surface is a finite sum of smooth surfaces separated by smooth curves with a finite number of corners. The BK integral is now a sum of integrals over each smooth surface. These integrals are evaluated by the method of stationary phase, resulting in specularly reflected waves and boundary diffracted waves represented by a line integral along the boundary of each surface. Further asymptotic evaluation of these line integrals results in expressions for edge-and corner-diffracted waves. Smooth approximations of the wavefield are given for the case that a reflection point and an edge-diffraction point are close to each other, and when an edge-diffraction point and a corner-diffraction point are close to each other. These formulas can be cascaded to provide asymptotic expressions for multiple converted, reflected, transmitted and diffracted waves in anisotropic, inhomogeneous, elastic media. In the case that the rays are well separated from all shadow zones, the new expressions satisfy reciprocity.