Accurate depth migration by a generalized phase‐shift method

A new depth migration method derived in the space‐frequency domain is based on a generalized phase‐shift method for the downward continuation of surface data. For a laterally variable velocity structure, the Fourier spatial components are no longer eigenvectors of the wave equation, and therefore a rigorous application of the phase‐shift method would seem to require finding the eigenvectors by a matrix diagonalization at every depth step. However, a recently derived expansion technique enables phase‐shift accuracy to be obtained without resorting to a costly matrix diagonalization. The new technique is applied to the migration of zero‐offset time sections. As with the laterally uniform velocity case, the evanescent components of the solution need to be isolated and eliminated, in this case by the application of a spatially variant high‐cut filter. Tests performed on the new method show that it is more accurate and efficient than standard integration techniques such as the Runge‐Kutta method or the Taylor method.