Reverse time migration-inversion from single-shot data

Reverse time migration is well established as an imaging method. In this work we analyze this method from an inverse scattering (that is, true amplitude) point of view. We recall that in the ray-Born approximation the medium is assumed to be the superposition of a smooth velocity model, and a perturbation, containing only high (∼ wavelength scale) wavenumbers. The single reflection data are assumed to be given by the perturbation of the pressure field in the linearization of the acoustic equations. We adapt a wave-equation RTM, based on backpropagation of (common-source) data, such that its resolution only reflects the illumination.