A guided tour of multiparameter full-waveform inversion with multicomponent data: From theory to practice

Building high-resolution models of several physical properties of the subsurface by multiparameter full waveform inversion (FWI) of multicomponent data will be a challenge for seismic imaging for the next decade. The physical properties, which govern propagation of seismic waves in visco-elastic media, are the velocities of the P- and S-waves, density, attenuation, and anisotropic parameters. Updating each property is challenging because several parameters of a different nature can have a coupled effect on the seismic response for a particular propagation regime (from transmission to reflection). This is generally referred to as trade-off or crosstalk between parameters. Moreover, different parameter classes can have different orders of magnitude or physical units and footprints of different strength in the wavefield, which can make the inversion poorly conditioned if it is not properly scaled.