Global P and PP traveltime tomography: rays versus waves

S U M M A R Y This paper presents a comparison of ray-theoretical and finite-frequency traveltime tomography for compressional waves. Our data set consists of 86 405 long-period P and PP–P traveltimes measured by cross-correlation. The traveltime of a finite-frequency wave is sensitive to anomalies in a hollow banana-shaped region surrounding the unperturbed ray path, with the sensitivity being zero on the ray. Because of the minimax nature of the surface-reflected PP wave, its sensitivity is more complicated. We compute the 3-D traveltime sensitivity efficiently by using the paraxial approximation in conjunction with ray theory and the Born approximation. We compare tomographic models with the same χ2 fit for both ray theory and finite-frequency analysis. Depending on the depth and size of the anomaly, the amplitudes of the velocity perturbations in the finite-frequency tomographic images are 30–50 per cent larger than in the corresponding ray-theoretical images, demonstrating that wave front healing cannot be neglected when interpreting long-period seismic waves. The images obtained provide clear evidence that a limited number of hotspots are fed by plumes originating in the lower mantle.