Maslov Ray Summation, Pseudo-Caustics, Lagrangian Equivalence and Transient Seismic Waveforms

SUMMARY Maslov ray summation is ‘less local’ than ordinary ray theory, because the receiver waveform depends on non-Fermat or neighbouring rays and more information about the wavefront than just local Gaussian curvature. In this way, the Maslov solution is able to remain valid at caustics, where geometrical rays and corresponding stationary points of the Maslov phase coalesce. the wavefront information is expressed via the Legendre transformation, whereby the physical wavefront is represented as the envelope of a family of tangent ‘planes’ (Snell fronts). the actual form of the Snell fronts (true planes, sections of curves or surfaces, etc.) depends on the spatial coordinates used. Given a selection for the Snell fronts and Maslov phase, one can substitute the Maslov integral solution directly into the wave equation and obtain a transport equation for the Maslov amplitude. This direct substitution is analogous to that used in ordinary ray theory and avoids pseudo-differential operators. Sometimes the relative curvature of the physical wavefront and a tangential Snell front is zero. the envelope-forming process breaks down, because the local correspondence between the physical front and the Snell fronts is not one to one and invertible. This situation corresponds to a so-called ‘pseudo-caustic’ (slowness-domain caustic or telescopic point) in the Maslov solution. Pseudo-caustics are not real. A particular ray from the source may touch a pseudo-caustic at some time in one coordinate system, but in another system this ray will not have a pseudo-caustic (at the same time and place). It is easy to design a change of coordinates (e.g. from cartesian to curvilinear or polar) to deform a single-valued traveltime function appropriately, but a multi-valued or folded wavefront, as at a physical or real caustic, is less simple. Catastrophe theory is concerned with putting multi-valued functions into ‘normal forms’ which do not have psuedo-caustics. the manifold here is ‘Lagrangian’ and V. I. Arnold showed that a special type of deformation or ‘canonical transformation’ must be used. A ‘Lagrangian equivalence’ consists of a deformation of the ‘base’ (x-space) and/or the addition of a function on the base. the latter simply means factoring out an appropriate reference phase before Legendre transformation and we have found that this simple step is often sufficient for removing pseudo-caustics. It requires no new numerical work, only an inspection or understanding of the ray-tracing results at hand. We present some body-wave computations using the reference-phase technique for models with real caustics in 2-D and for a single-valued wavefront in 3-D. We point out that a Lagrangian equivalence may be used to turn a maximum of the Maslov phase function into a minimum. This has no effect on the frequency-domain solution, but may affect the causality of the computed waveform when the Chapman method is used to obtain the time-domain response. Causality is a property which one may need to impose explicitly. Only the non-delta or one-sided function part of the response (waveform tail) is affected by this consideration. Although zeroth-order Maslov theory correctly describes the severe waveform is clear from Secdistortion due to wavefront catastrophes, it may not adequately model the more subtle effects of smooth wavefront bending. Zeroth-order Maslov theory contains some but not all of the first-order (ω−1) terms of ordinary asymptotic ray theory. First-order Maslov theory is needed for complete consistency up to ω−1. Experimentation will several different zeroth-order Maslov representations is a simple, rapid way to ascertain the potential importance of thse more subtle waveform effects. If the waveform tails are too strong, the assumption that the Maslov (and ray theory) amplitude function can be expanded in powers of ω− may break down. Numerical integration of a wave equation is then necessary.