AccScience Publishing / JSE / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/JSE025440096
ARTICLE

Mitigating numerical dispersion in full-waveform inversion imaging: A preconditioned optimization approach for finite-difference weights

Ganglin Lei1,2,3,4,5 Jianping Huang6* Wensheng Duan1,2,3,4,5 Chao Chen1,2,3,4,5 Zhenwen Liu1,2,3,4,5 Chang Zhou1,2,3,4,5 Weiting Peng6
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1 R&D Center for Ultra-Deep Complex Reservoir Exploration and Development, China National Petroleum Corporation, Korla, Xinjiang, China
2 Xinjiang Engineering Research Center for Ultra-deep Complex Reservoir Exploration and Development, China National Petroleum Corporation, Korla, Xinjiang,  China
3 Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Ultra-deep Oil and Gas, China National Petroleum Corporation, Korla, Xinjiang,  China
4 China National Energy Administration, State Energy Key Laboratory of Carbonate Oil and Gas, Korla, Xinjiang, China
5 Key Laboratory of Carbonate, China National Petroleum Corporation, Korla, Xinjiang,  China
6 School of Geosciences, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, Shandong,  China
JSE 2026, 35(2), 025440096 https://doi.org/10.36922/JSE025440096
Submitted: 29 October 2025 | Revised: 21 December 2025 | Accepted: 22 December 2025 | Published: 6 March 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Full-waveform inversion (FWI) imaging is a high-resolution seismic imaging technique that directly produces subsurface images by inverting the full recorded wavefield. However, its reliability is often limited by numerical dispersion errors arising from finite-difference (FD) forward modeling. One key approach for reducing dispersion is to optimize the FD coefficients using an optimization algorithm. However, conventional methods for optimizing FD weights focus only on reducing spatial dispersion, which can weaken numerical stability, especially when using large time steps (i.e., high Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy [CFL] numbers). To address this issue, we introduce a new optimization approach that improves both simulation accuracy and stability. The proposed method combines error functions from both the time–space domain and the spatial domain into a single adaptive objective function. A dynamic weighting factor, which depends on the CFL number, facilitates a trade-off between accuracy and stability of the optimal FD weights. We also use the seismic wavelet spectrum as prior information to constrain the optimization. The optimization problem is solved by the least-squares method. In the theoretical test, the proposed weights significantly reduce wavefield simulation errors across a wide range of wavenumbers, with a higher CFL number than conventional approaches. When applied to FWI, this method reduces phase distortion and local minima in the objective function. In a test using the Marmousi model at 40 Hz, our approach produced clear and continuous deep structures, closely matching results from dispersion-free benchmarks. In contrast, conventional methods failed due to severe dispersion. This work provides a more robust numerical foundation for high-frequency FWI imaging by improving both accuracy and stability.

Keywords
Finite-difference weights
Full-waveform inversion
Full-waveform inversion imaging
Dispersion error
Funding
This work was supported by the research project “Geophysical Technology and Field Trials for Ultra-Deep Complex Oil and Gas Reservoirs: Research on Q Least- Squares Migration Method” (Grant no. YF202401).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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