Two-dimensional frequency-domain visco-elastic full waveform inversion: Parallel algorithms, optimization and performance

Full waveform inversion (FWI) is an appealing seismic data-fitting procedure for the derivation of high-resolution quantitative models of the subsurface at various scales. Full modelling and inversion of visco-elastic waves from multiple seismic sources allow for the recovering of different physical parameters, although they remain computationally challenging tasks. An efficient massively parallel, frequency-domain FWI algorithm is implemented here on large-scale distributed-memory platforms for imaging two-dimensional visco-elastic media. The resolution of the elastodynamic equations, as the forward problem of the inversion, is performed in the frequency domain on unstructured triangular meshes, using a low-order finite element discontinuous Galerkin method. The linear system resulting from discretization of the forward problem is solved with a parallel direct solver. The inverse problem, which is presented as a non-linear local optimization problem, is solved in parallel with a quasi-Newton method, and this allows for reliable estimation of multiple classes of visco-elastic parameters. Two levels of parallelism are implemented in the algorithm, based on message passing interfaces and multi-threading, for optimal use of computational time and the core-memory resources available on modern distributed-memory multi-core computational platforms. The algorithm allows for imaging of realistic targets at various scales, ranging from near-surface geotechnic applications to crustal-scale exploration.