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Marchenko Redatuming in a Dissipative Medium: Numerical and Experimental

Implementation

Article  in  Physical Review Applied · October 2018

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevApplied.10.044022

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 Marchenko Redatuming in a Dissipative Medium:
Numerical and Experimental Implementation
Tianci Cui∗
Schlumberger Cambridge Research, United Kingdom and
Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Theodor S. Becker and Dirk-Jan van Manen

Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

James E. Rickett
Schlumberger Cambridge Research, United Kingdom

Ivan Vasconcelos
Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
(Dated: August 8, 2018)
Conventional Marchenko redatuming can retrieve the Green’s function at a virtual receiver inside
a heterogeneous medium from single-sided reflection data. It requires minimal a priori knowledge of
medium properties but assumes the medium to be lossless. The dissipative Marchenko scheme, on
the other hand, can retrieve the Green’s function inside a lossy medium, but requires double-sided
access to the lossy medium in oder to obtain the reflection response of its corresponding effectual
medium with negative dissipation. Here, we implement the dissipative Marchenko scheme both
numerically and experimentally, and successfully redatum full sound wavefields in a 1D waveguide.
To achieve this, we first quantify the medium attenuation using the nearly constant Q model to
facilitate numerical modeling. Then, we numerically retrieve two sets of focusing functions which
are required by the scheme, by iteratively re-emitting the time-windowed and time-reversed signal
from a single side of the dissipative and effectual media. Without any knowledge of the medium
properties, we experimentally retrieve the desired focusing and Green’s functions inside the physical
wave tube from double-sided scattering data measurements. We show that both offline processing
and real-time focusing can achieve similar accuracy. True-amplitude Green’s functions can also be
obtained but require a scaling correction. This is the first time that the dissipative Marchenko
scheme is applied to laboratory data to physically focus a wavefield inside a dissipative medium.
Reconciling numerical modeling and physical experiments is an important step in establishing the
applicability of the Marchenko methods for attenuative media.

I. INTRODUCTION sound wave using the Marchenko method in a controlled

Marchenko redatuming, also known as data-driven
single-sided focusing, can retrieve the Green’s function at
a virtual receiver inside a 3D heterogeneous medium with
minimal a priori knowledge of the medium properties [1].
It was first developed for quantum mechanics using the
Schrödinger equation [2]. Going beyond time-reversal
acoustics and seismic interferometry, Marchenko reda-
tuming does not need any physical sources or receivers in
the subsurface, and requires only single-sided reflection
data and a smooth macro-model of the medium veloc-
ity [3, 4]. The retrieved Green’s function may be used
in a variety of applications, including obtaining images
of the medium devoid of multiply scattered energy [5–
8], internal multiple attenuation [9, 10], synthesizing pri-
maries [11, 12], target-oriented modeling [13, 14], imaging
[6, 15–18] and inversion [19], overburden elimination [20]
and virtual subsurface wavefield estimation [21, 22].
Becker et al. [23] were the first to physically focus a 1D
∗ tcui2@slb.com
laboratory experiment. Because the approach is based
on a lossless medium assumption, they had to correct
the reflection data for the dissipation in the 1D waveg-
uide by measuring its geometry and attenuation coeffi-
cients beforehand. Previously, Slob [24] had adapted the
Marchenko method to a lossy medium with a scheme
that requires no knowledge of medium parameters; how-
ever, the scheme does require double-sided access to the
medium. In this paper, we implement this dissipative
Marchenko scheme both numerically and experimentally
on a 1D dissipative waveguide.
II. THEORY OF THE DISSIPATIVE
MARCHENKO SCHEME
We briefly review the theory of Marchenko redatuming
and its extension to a 1D lossy medium. We use x to rep-
resent the spatial coordinate which increases downward.
All heterogeneities of the medium are located between
the upper boundary x0 and the lower boundary xm . De-
noting an arbitrary intermediate depth level as xi , we

introduce a truncated medium A, which is identical to
the full medium above xi but is reflection-free below it.
We define the temporal Fourier transform of a space- and
time-dependent quantity p(x, t) as
Z ∞
p(x, ω) = p(x, t) exp (−iωt)dt, (1)
−∞
where ω is the angular frequency in radians per second.
The ordinary frequency defined by ω/(2π) in Hertz is
denoted by ν. All wavefield quantities represent impulse
responses but are depicted as bandlimited signals in the
time domain. The lossless Marchenko scheme in 1D [25]
defines two decomposed focusing functions based on the
truncated medium. The downgoing focusing function is
1 (9)
f1+ (x0 , xi , ω) = , (2)
TA (x0 , xi , ω)
where TA (x0 , xi , ω) is the transmission response of the
truncated medium A from xi to x0 . The reflection re-
sponse of f1+ (x0 , xi , ω) in the truncated medium is the
upgoing focusing function
f1− (x0 , xi , ω) = RA (x0 , x0 , ω)f1+ (x0 , xi , ω), (3)
where RA (x0 , x0 , ω) is the reflection response of the trun-
cated medium at x0 . According to the lossless Marchenko
equations, the focusing functions directly relate the re-
flection data R(x0 , x0 , ω) acquired at a single side of the
full medium to the up- and downgoing Green’s functions
G± (xi , x0 , ω) associated with a virtual receiver at xi in-
side the full medium
R(x0 , x0 , ω)f1+ (x0 , xi , ω) = f1− (x0 , xi , ω) + G− (xi , x0 , ω),
(4)
R(x0 , x0 , ω)f1−∗ (x0 , xi , ω) = f1+∗ (x0 , xi , ω)−G+ (xi , x0 , ω),
(5)
where ∗ denotes complex conjugation. Based on their
causality properties, focusing and Green’s functions can
be obtained using an iterative procedure [1, 26, 27], al-
though other approaches such as least-squares inversion
are also possible [28].
To adapt the Marchenko method to include dissipa-
tion, Slob [24] introduced a so-called effectual medium,
which is similar to the physical medium but with negative
dissipation. In the following, all variables with subscript
q representing the dissipative medium and e its effectual
counterpart. Slob [24] derived two sets of Marchenko
equations, the first of which reads
−
+
Rq (x0 , x0 , ω)f1q (x0 , xi , ω) = f1q (x0 , xi , ω)+G−
q (xi , x0 , ω),
(6)
2
−∗ +∗
Re (x0 , x0 , ω)f1q (x0 , xi , ω) = f1q (x0 , xi , ω)−G+ e (xi , x0 , ω).
(7)
Eqs. (6) and (7) can be solved by iteratively up-
±
dating the dissipative focusing functions f1q (x0 , xi , ω),
to retrieve the upgoing dissipative Green’s function
G−q (xi , x0 , ω) and the downgoing effectual Green’s func-
tion G+ e (xi , x0 , ω). The second set of Marchenko equa-
tions is
+
Re (x0 , x0 , ω)f1e −
(x0 , xi , ω) = f1e (x0 , xi , ω)+G−
e (xi , x0 , ω),
(8)
−∗ +∗
Rq (x0 , x0 , ω)f1e (x0 , xi , ω) = f1e (x0 , xi , ω)−G+ q (xi , x0 , ω).
Similarly, Eqs. (8) and (9) can be solved by iteratively
±
updating the effectual focusing functions f1e (x0 , xi , ω),
to retrieve the upgoing effectual Green’s function
G−e (xi , x0 , ω) and the downgoing dissipative Green’s
function G+ q (xi , x0 , ω).
Although the effectual medium does not exist phys-
ically, its reflection response Re (x0 , x0 , ω) can be calcu-
lated via a relationship between the dissipative and effec-
tual media using double-sided reflection and transmission
measurements of the dissipative medium
Rq∗ (x0 , x0 , ω)Re (x0 , x0 , ω)+Tq∗ (xm , x0 , ω)Te (xm , x0 , ω) = 1,
(10)
Tq∗ (x0 , xm , ω)Re (x0 , x0 , ω)+Rq∗ (xm , xm , ω)Te (xm , x0 , ω) = 0.
(11)
III. QUANTIFYING DISSIPATION IN A 1D
WAVE TUBE
A low-noise sound wave tube is manufactured at ETH
Zürich for various 1D acoustic wave propagation experi-
ments. Fig. 1 shows the wave tube used for experimen-
tal implementation of the dissipative Marchenko scheme,
with the x-axis dimension scaled down by a factor of four
for display. The tube is assembled from short cylindrical
parts along the axial direction x. The parts are made
by 3D printing using photopolymer VeroWhitePlus. The
tube is open to the atmosphere and filled with air at
room temperature and pressure. Acoustic impedance in
the 1D waveguide is inversely proportional to the cross-
sectional area. Hence, impedance contrasts are created
by varying the tube diameter along the y-axis. The mod-
ular design of this setup enables easy modification of the
tube geometry and flexible access to the pressure field
along the tube. A National Instruments (NI) USB-6216
DAQ board generates the source signal, which is am-
plified by a stereo audio amplifier (Monacor SA-100) to

drive one of the loudspeakers (B&C DE7) generating a
transient pressure perturbation within the tube. Three
microphones and pre-amplifiers (model PCB Piezotron-
ics 378B13) are used to probe the pressure wavefield at
locations x0 , xi and xm , respectively. Passing through a
four-channel signal conditioner (model PCB Piezotronics
482C15), the signal returns to the NI DAQ board for ac-
quisition. We repeat each acquisition 50 times and stack
them to suppress random noise.
The pressure field inside the tube is the sum of the
fundamental mode and higher modes. If the source is
driven at frequencies below the planar cutoff frequency,
higher modes become evanescent and decay exponentially
[29]. For the cylindrical tube, the planar cutoff frequency
νc (Hz) is computed according to
1.841c
νc = , (12)
πd
where c is the speed of sound in the wave tube and d is
the diameter of the tube cross section. With c ≈ 343 m/s
and d = 2 cm, νc ≈ 10 kHz; if d = 4 cm, νc ≈ 5 kHz.
During our experiment, a Ricker wavelet with a dominant
frequency of 1 kHz is chosen to drive the loudspeaker so
that the pressure wave propagating inside the tube is
approximately planar.
The sound wave experiences significant attenuation
when propagating in the tube. The exact cause of at-
tenuation has not been identified, but it is postulated to
be from energy conversion to heat and scattering from
imperfect coupling of every two adjacent tube parts. To
study the attenuation effects, we record the direct ar-
rivals at various source-receiver offsets after emitting a
1 kHz Ricker wavelet into a tube of 2 cm diameter. To
mitigate the transfer-function effects of the loudspeaker
and the microphone, an inverse transfer function is pre-
calculated and convolved with the source wavelet so that
the recorded waveforms are approximate to the shape of
the Ricker wavelet. Blue traces in Fig. 2 are the recorded
arrivals, whose amplitudes decay with the increasing off-
set x. Attenuation is commonly characterized by the
quality factor Q. For moderate loss, Q can be defined as
the maximum energy stored during a cycle, divided by
the energy lost during the cycle [30]. To facilitate numer-
ical modeling of the dissipation effects, we parameterize
the attenuation by fitting the waveform data with the
nearly constant Q model [30, 31]. We define the impulse
response of a 1D plane wave propagating to the distance
x as
 as dashed red traces in Fig. 2. They are seen to fit the
I(x, ω) = exp − iK(ω)x , (13)
where K(ω) is the propagation constant and it becomes
complex valued in the presence of attenuation
ω are the misfit functions of simultaneous inversion using
Kq (ω) = − iα(ω), (14)
c(ω)
3
where the phase velocity c(ω) and the absorption coef-
ficient α(ω) are both frequency dependent. The phase
velocity determines phase dispersion according to
1 1 1 ω

= 1− ln , (15)
c(ω) c0 πQ ω0
where c0 is a reference velocity at a reference frequency ω0
(rad/s) or ν0 (Hz). The absorption coefficient is positive
and describes energy loss in terms of
ω
α(ω) = , (16)
2c0 Q
where Q is assumed to be independent of frequency over
the range of measurement. Inserting Eqs. (14), (15) and
(16) to Eq. (13), we obtain the impulse response of the
nearly constant Q wave propagation in a 1D homoge-
neous medium
 xω  i ω
1 
Iq (x, ω) = exp − i− ln + . (17)
c0 πQ ω0 2Q
Choosing ν0 to be the dominant frequency 1 kHz, we
estimate Q and c0 by inverting the recorded waveforms
in Fig. 2. The choice of this reference frequency will be
discussed later. By means of a grid search, we scan the
values of Q at intervals of 2 from 20 to 140 and c0 at
intervals of 0.1 m/s from 339 m/s to 349 m/s. For every
pair of c0 and Q values being searched, we filter the first
waveform using Eq. (17) and calculate the L2 -norm misfit
between the filtered waveform and a recorded waveform
at a later time. The optimal solution of Q and c0 should
make the forward-Q filtered first waveform fit the later
waveform in the least-squares sense. We first conduct
individual inversion, meaning that the misfit function is
calculated for each waveform pair individually. Fig. 3
displays the misfit functions of fitting the first waveform
to the third, fifth, seventh and ninth individually. They
all look similar and converge to similar Q and c0 . Their
standard deviations from inverting all the waveform pairs
are correspondingly 2.9 and 0.66 m/s, implying reliable
inversion results. In order to get a consistent estimate,
we then conduct simultaneous inversion, that is, a total
misfit function is calculated by fitting the first waveform
to all the other eight waveforms simultaneously. Fig. 4(a)
shows the total misfit function which converges to Q = 56
and c0 = 343.8 m/s. The first waveform filtered using the
inverted values of Q and c0 to all larger offsets are plotted
recorded waveforms very well.
Whereas in the above analysis we choose 1 kHz as the
reference frequency, in theory, any frequency within the
range of measurement can be used to invert for the ref-
erence velocity at this frequency. Figs. 4(b) and 4(c)
a low (ν0 = 0.1 kHz) and a high (the Nyquist frequency

ν0 = 62.5 kHz) reference frequency, respectively. In con-
trast to Fig. 4(a) where Q and c0 are constrained inde-
pendently, there are trade-offs between them caused by
the relatively low signal-to-noise ratio at low and high
frequencies. Substituting each pair of the Q and c0 esti-
mates from simultaneous inversion at the low, dominant
or high frequency into Eq. (15), we can predict a corre-
sponding velocity dispersion relation. As Fig. 4(d) shows,
inversion using these three different reference frequencies
yields almost the same Q value and velocity dispersion
relation from this low-noise experiment.
We conclude that the attenuation effects observed from
the 1D waveguide can be well captured by the nearly con-
stant Q model within the experimental frequency range.
More experiments show that the attenuation parameters
vary with the dominant signal frequency, diameter of the
tube cross section, coupling condition of tube parts, 3D-
printing material, etc. Note that we parameterize the
dissipation for the purpose of modeling wave propagation
in the dissipative and effectual media only. The dissipa-
tive Marchenko scheme is purely data driven, requiring
no knowledge of the medium properties including the at-
tenuation parameters.
IV. NUMERICAL IMPLEMENTATION
Based on the nearly constant Q model, the effectual
medium is modeled such that its propagation constant is
the complex conjugate of the corresponding one in the
dissipative medium:
ω ing functions: f1+ is composed of a direct arrival f1d
Ke (ω) = + iα(ω). (18)
c(ω)
Inserting Eqs. (15), (16) and (18) to Eq. (13), we model
the impulse response of 1D effectual wave propagation
according to
 xω  i ω
1  effectual full media at x0 , we retrieve the focusing func-
Ie (x, ω) = exp − i− ln − , (19)
c0 πQ ω0 2Q
which is the same as Eq. (17) except for the last minus
sign determining energy gain. Fig. 5 shows the modeled
waveforms of propagating a 1 kHz Ricker wavelet to var-
ious traveltimes in a 1D homogeneous medium which is
lossless, dissipative and effectual, respectively. Instead of
remaining a constant waveform in the lossless medium,
the amplitude of the wavelet decays gradually in the
dissipative medium whereas it increases in the effectual
medium. Similar phase dispersion can be observed from
both dissipative and effectual media that the later side
lobe of the waveform is progressively larger than the ear-
lier side lobe.
The dissipative Marchenko scheme is implemented
both numerically and experimentally on a 6.8-m-long
wave tube shown schematically in Fig. 6(a). The tube
section between x0 and xm is our target of interest, which
4
is distant enough from the physical tube boundaries x00
and x0m so as to push boundary reflections to arrive at
later times. Besides the boundaries, there are three re-
flectors above and one reflector below the desired focus-
ing datum xi . Fig. 6b is the truncated tube model, from
which benchmark focusing functions can be obtained.
We first implement the dissipative Marchenko scheme
by numerical modeling to illustrate the physics intu-
itively. Impedance contrasts are modeled by varying the
medium density according to Fig. 6(c). We use a con-
stant velocity of c0 = 343.8 m/s at ν0 = 1 kHz and
an invariant Q of 56, which does not fully represent the
medium properties of the variable-diameter wave tube,
but serves as a numerical reference for the experimental
implementation in the next section. We model acoustic
wave propagation in a 1D heterogeneous medium incor-
porating the nearly constant Q attenuation using layer
matrices in the frequency domain [32, 33]. This model-
ing method is also adapted to model effectual wave prop-
agation using Eq. (19). We adopt the complex frequency
technique [34, 35] to avoid aliasing in the time domain
especially for wave propagation in the effectual medium.
Assuming that the truncated medium is known,
we model its reflection RA (x0 , x0 ) and transmission
TA (xi , x0 ) responses to calculate the benchmark focus-
ing functions by definition (Eqs. (2) and (3)) for dis-
sipative and effectual cases, respectively. Fig. 7 shows
the benchmark focusing functions with td (x0 , xi ) denot-
ing the traveltime of the direct wave transmitting from xi
to x0 . In both dissipative and effectual cases, the events
have different amplitudes but the same traveltimes. They
obey the same causality properties as the lossless focus-
+
at
+
−td and a following coda f1m arriving between −td and
td ; f1− arrives between −td and td . Separated in time
from the Green’s functions G± (xi , x0 ) arriving at and af-
ter td , the focusing functions can be retrieved without
knowledge of the truncated medium.
With single-sided access to both the dissipative and
tions by iteratively re-emitting a time-reversed and time-
windowed signal into these media. Fig. 8 shows the it-
erations of solving the first set of Marchenko equations
(6) and (7). We update the dissipative focusing functions
+ −
f1q (blue traces) and f1q (red traces) by iteratively inject-
ing them into the dissipative medium (left column) and
then the effectual medium (right column) individually.
Numerical absorbing boundary conditions are applied at
the two tube ends x00 and x0m , and wavefields between
x0 and xm are displayed only. The overall amplitude of
the wavefields decays when propagating in the dissipative
medium in contrast with that in the effectual medium
where wave propagation gains energy. Suppose we know
+
the direct arrival of f1q at the time −td (blue trace in
Fig. 8(a)), which is the correct initial focusing function
+ +
f1qd . We first inject f1qd into the dissipative medium and
record its reflection response (red trace in Fig. 8(a)). We
then mute all the events arriving at and after td , reverse
 5

FIG. 1. A top view of the sound wave tube setup with the x-axis dimension scaled down by a factor of four for display: the
tube section whose diameter is (a-1) 3 cm and (a-2) 4 cm (others are 2 cm), (b) the NI DAQ board, (c) the audio amplifier, (d)
the two loudspeakers, the three microphones and pre-amplifiers at (e-1) x0 , (e-2) xi and (e-3) xm , (f) the signal conditional.

FIG. 2. Direct arrivals recorded at various offsets (solid blue), FIG. 3. Misfit functions of individual inversion choosing ν0 =
and the first waveform being forward-Q filtered to all larger 1 kHz. The titles indicate which waveform pairs from Fig. 2
offsets using the optimal values of Q and c0 at ν0 = 1 kHz are used and the inverted Q and c0 values. The red star
from simultaneous inversion (dashed red). indicates the minimum of each misfit function.

the trace in time, and inject it into the effectual medium

(red trace in Fig. 8(b)). Its reflection response (blue trace
in Fig. 8(b)) is time-windowed, time-reversed and finally
+
added to f1qd as the incident trace to be used in the sec-
ond iteration. This numerical example converges after
four iterations when the recorded traces stop updating.
During the last iteration, blue trace in Fig. 8(e) con-
+ +
verges to the benchmark f1q in Fig. 7(a). Injecting f1q
into the dissipative medium focuses the wavefield at xi
and at time zero to form a pure downgoing virtual source.
The subsequent response recorded at x0 after td is the re-
trieved upgoing dissipative Green’s function G− q (xi , x0 )
by interpreting the virtual source as a virtual receiver
using source-receiver reciprocity. In Fig. 8(f), red trace
−
converges to the time-revered benchmark f1q in Fig. 7(b). FIG. 4. (a)-(c) Misfit functions of simultaneous inversion us-
Injecting it into the effectual medium cancels all the in- ing different reference frequencies indicated by the titles. (d)
ternal multiples generated from above xi . A pure upgo- Velocity dispersion relations represented as the natural log-
ing virtual source is formed implicitly at xi and at time arithm of the phase velocity versus frequency (curves) pre-
zero, and is also interpreted as a virtual receiver. The dicted from the three pairs of Q and c0 estimates (circles
subsequent wavefield recorded at and after td is the re- with the same colors as the corresponding dispersion curves).
trieved downgoing effectual Green’s function G+ e (xi , x0 )
 6

FIG. 5. Modeling of propagating a 1 kHz Ricker wavelet to
various traveltimes (indicated by vertical dotted black lines)
in a 1D homogeneous medium which is (a) lossless, (b) dissi-
pative and (c) effectual, assuming Q = 56 and c0 = 343.8 m/s
at ν0 = 1 kHz.
FIG. 7. The benchmark focusing functions calculated by def-
inition for the numerical implementation: (a) the downgoing
and (b) upgoing focusing functions in the dissipative (blue)
and effectual (red) media. The vertical dotted black lines
indicate traveltimes td and −td .

FIG. 6. The schematics of the wave tube: (a) the full medium,
(b) the truncated medium, (c) the medium density imple-
mented by numerical modeling. The horizontal dotted black
lines indicate the physical tube ends (x00 and x0m ), the bound-
aries of the target section (x0 and xm ) and the desired fo-
cusing datum (xi ). Solid red stars and triangles denote the
sources and receivers in the experimental implementation.

with reverse polarity. See Refs. [36, 37] for details of in-
terpreting Marchenko focusing wavefields in a 1D lossless
medium.
Fig. 9 shows the iterations of solving the second set of
Marchenko equations (8) and (9). The plots and inter-
pretations are shown in the same way as Fig. 8 except
for interchanging the dissipative medium and the effec-
tual medium. Starting from the correct initial focusing
+ +
function f1ed , which is the direct arrival of f1e at −td ,
+ blue are x0 , xi and xm from top to bottom. The hollow red
we iteratively update the effectual focusing functions f1e
−
(blue traces) and f1e (red traces) to retrieve the Green’s
functions G− +
e (xi , x0 ) and Gq (xi , x0 ).
±
FIG. 8. Illustration of iteratively retrieving f1q . Two columns
of the panels represent wavefield propagation in the dissipa-
tive medium (left) and the effectual medium (right). Three
rows of the panels correspond to the first, second and fourth
iterations from top to bottom. Within each panel, the traces
being injected (blue in the left column, red in the right col-
umn) and recorded (red in the left column, blue in the right
column) at x0 are plotted atop the corresponding time-space
wave propagation diagram. The vertical dotted black lines de-
note the traveltimes −td and td . The horizontal dotted lines
denote specific depth levels: white are the four reflectors, and
triangles indicate the virtual receivers.

± take two approaches to the iterative Marchenko scheme:
FIG. 9. Illustration of iteratively retrieving f1e . Two columns
of the panels represent wavefield propagation in the effectual
medium (left) and the dissipative medium (right). Three rows
of the panels correspond to the first, second and fourth itera-
tions from top to bottom. Within each panel, the traces being
injected (blue in the left column, red in the right column) and
recorded (red in the left column, blue in the right column) at
x0 are plotted atop the corresponding time-space wave prop-
agation diagram. The vertical dotted black lines denote the
traveltimes −td and td . The horizontal dotted lines denote
specific depth levels: white are the four reflectors, and blue
are x0 , xi and xm from top to bottom. The hollow red trian-
gles indicate the virtual receivers.
V. EXPERIMENTAL IMPLEMENTATION
In the laboratory experiment, we mount two sources
at the tube ends x00 and x0m instead of x0 and xm for
practical reasons such as single-directional radiation, a
simpler source signature and better coupling with tube
parts. We truncate the recordings before the boundary
reflections, which are not accounted for in this Marchenko
scheme. Thus, higher-order events scattered from the
tube reflectors are also discarded. This, in turn, incurs
small errors in our results.
Fig. 10(a) is the reflection data recorded at x0 after
emitting a 1 kHz Ricker wavelet from x00 . To imple-
ment the Marchenko scheme, a static correction is ap-
plied to Rq (x0 , x00 ) by muting the direct arrival (dashed
red) and applying a time shift of t0 (x0 , x00 ), which is
the direct wave traveltime from x00 to x0 . We consider
the direct arrival centered at time zero as the known
source wavelet w(t) in the Marchenko system. Reflec-
tion from the other side Rq (xm , x0m ) in Fig. 10(b) is pro-
7
cessed in the same way to obtain Rq (xm , xm ). Fig. 10(c)
plots the transmission traces from both sides after static
correction. Their consistency underlines source-receiver
reciprocity and high repeatability of our experiment.
Fig. 10(d) shows the effectual reflection trace Re (x0 , x0 )
calculated from the double-sided dissipative measure-
ments by solving Eqs. (10) and (11). Its events have
the same traveltimes as the recorded dissipative reflec-
tion trace Rq (x0 , x0 ) but larger amplitudes.
To obtain benchmark focusing functions for the exper-
imental implementation, we also made a wave tube rep-
resenting the truncated medium according to Fig. 6(b).
From the acquired reflection RAq (x0 , x0 ) and transmis-
sion TAq (xi , x0 ) shown in Fig. 11, we compute the bench-
mark focusing functions using Eqs. (2) and (3) to verify
the accuracy of the focusing functions retrieved from the
full medium later.
With the aim of focusing the wavefield inside the tube
where one-way traveltime is td , we experimentally re-
trieve the Marchenko focusing functions without any
knowledge of the medium. The 1 kHz Ricker wavelet
with a unit amplitude centered at time −td is used as
+ +
the initial focusing function for both f1q and f1e . We
offline processing and real-time focusing. For offline pro-
cessing, wavefield injection during each iteration is con-
ducted via numerical convolution with broadband reflec-
tion data Rq (x0 , x0 ) or Re (x0 , x0 ) with wavelet w(t) de-
convolved from them. During real-time focusing, we in-
ject each trace into the tube and record the reflection
of physical wave propagation in the dissipative medium
whereas wave propagation in the effectual medium is
still performed by numerically convolving with broad-
band Re (x0 , x0 ). Since a source signal has to be emitted
from x00 , a filter H is calculated to compensate for the
propagation effects from x00 to x0
wR (ω)
H(ω) = exp (iωt0 ), (20)
w(ω)
where wR represents the 1 kHz Ricker wavelet. We apply
this filter together with the inverse transfer function to
the signal before it is injected. The incident signal it-
self serves as the known direct arrival and is subtracted
from the total recording at x0 to obtain the pure re-
flection response. All the signals are time shifted to be
causal for physical implementation and are shifted back
to be consistent with the Marchenko convention for dis-
play. Figs. 12 to 15 are the focusing functions retrieved
by offline processing and real-time focusing, from the
first, second and fourth iteration until convergence. We
start iterations with initial focusing functions with incor-
rect amplitudes, which results in overall scaling errors of
the retrieved focusing functions. To ease the comparison
with the retrieved focusing functions, we normalize the
+
benchmark f1q such that its maximum amplitude equals
one. The same scalar is used to normalize the bench-
−
mark f1q . Since it is physically impossible to obtain the
 8

benchmark effectual focusing functions, we compare the

± ±
retrieved f1e with the normalized benchmark f1q as a ref-
±
erence. As we can see, the retrieved f1q gradually con-
verge to their normalized benchmarks. Small errors are
due to the incorrect waveform of the initial focusing func-
tion, which should strictly be the Ricker wavelet distorted
by attenuation effects. Consistent with the numerical im-
±
plementation, the retrieved f1e have the same traveltimes
±
but different amplitudes compared to f1q . Offline pro-
cessing and real-time focusing achieve similar accuracy.
+
To validate wavefield focusing, we inject the retrieved f1q
(with filter H and the inverse transfer function applied)
from x00 into the wave tube of the truncated medium, and
record the transmission response at xi . As Fig. 16 shows,
compared to the reference response of emitting the direct FIG. 10. Experimental data acquired from the wave tube of
+ the full medium: (a) reflection data from the upper boundary
arrival of f1q only, injecting its coda largely suppresses
all the following reverberations so that the wavefield is with its direct arrival w(t − t0 ) in dashed red and the travel-
physically focused to a single wavelet at the specified lo- time t0 (x0 , x00 ) denoted by the dotted black line, (b) reflection
data from the lower boundary with its direct arrival in dashed
cation.
± ± red, (c) double-sided transmission data after static correction,
With the retrieved f1q and f1e , we solve the Marchenko (d) reflection data calculated for the effectual medium com-
−
equations 6 and 9 for Gq (xi , x0 ) and G+ q (xi , x0 ) individu- pared to the dissipative measurement.
ally. Figs. 17(a) and 17(b) display the retrieved up- and
downgoing dissipative Green’s functions. Compared to
offline processing, real-time focusing can only retrieve the
Green’s functions before they are mixed with boundary
reflections. We use a and b to denote the factors which
± ±
scale the retrieved f1q and f1e to their correct ampli-
tudes respectively. Eq. (6) indicates that the incorrectly
±
scaled f1q lead to the same scaling error a in the retrieved
−
Gq (xi , x0 ). Similarly, the retrieved G+ q (xi , x0 ) has the
±
same scaling error b as the retrieved f1e . Scalars a and
b are not equal because we use the same initial focusing
+ +
function for f1q and f1e , whose direct arrivals actually
have different amplitudes as Fig. 7(a) shows. Their am-
plitudes are influenced by energy loss or gain along the
propagation path from xi to x0 , which is usually difficult
to estimate in practice. For validation with the bench- FIG. 11. Experimental data acquired from the wave tube
mark total Green’s function G(xi , x0 ) recorded from the of the truncated medium: (a) reflection data and (b) trans-
physical medium, we conduct a scaling correction to sum mission data after static correction, (c) downgoing and (d)
up the individually retrieved Green’s functions. Using upgoing benchmark dissipative focusing functions for the ex-
a grid search method, we scan the values of a and b at perimental implementation. The vertical dotted black lines
intervals of 0.001 from 0 to 0.3, and find that the weights indicate traveltimes td and −td .
a = 0.147 and b = 0.110 minimize the L2 -norm misfit
between the retrieved and benchmark total Gq (xi , x0 ).
Fig. 17(c) shows they match each other very well, veri- the dissipative and effectual media. Then we illustrate
fying the accuracy of our experimental Marchenko reda- the physics of the dissipative Marchenko scheme by nu-
tuming. merical modeling. Starting with the correct initial focus-
ing function, we iteratively re-emit the time-windowed
and time-reversed signal from a single side of the dissipa-
tive and effectual media. Two sets of focusing functions
VI. CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK are retrieved that focus the wavefields inside the dissi-
pative and effectual media, respectively. In the experi-
Using both numerical and laboratory experimentation, ment, we measure the double-sided scattering data from
we successfully verify full-wavefield redatuming by dis- the wave tube representing the full medium to derive its
sipative Marchenko focusing in a 1D sound wave tube. effectual reflection response. Using an estimate of the ini-
We first quantify the medium dissipation by fitting the tial focusing function, we iteratively retrieve two sets of
laboratory-recorded waveforms with the nearly constant focusing functions up to scaling errors. Offline processing
Q model. This allows us to model propagation effects in and real-time focusing achieve similar accuracy. Physi-
 9

+ −
FIG. 12. Iterations of retrieving f1q by offline processing and FIG. 15. Iterations of retrieving f1e by offline processing and
real-time focusing compared to the normalized benchmark real-time focusing compared to the normalized benchmark
+ −
f1q . f1q .

FIG. 16. Focusing validation: transmission responses

− +
FIG. 13. Iterations of retrieving f1q by offline processing and recorded at xi after injecting f1q retrieved by (a) offline pro-
real-time focusing compared to the normalized benchmark cessing and (b) real-time focusing into the wave tube of the
− truncated medium, compared to the responses of injecting the
f1q .
+
direct arrival of f1q only.

+
FIG. 14. Iterations of retrieving f1e by offline processing and FIG. 17. Green’s function retrieval: (a) upgoing and (b)
real-time focusing compared to the normalized benchmark downgoing dissipative Green’s functions retrieved up to over-
+
f1q . all scaling errors, (c) total dissipative Green’s functions after
scaling correction compared to the benchmark.

cal wavefield focusing is observed at the desired location
by injecting the retrieved downgoing dissipative focusing
function into the wave tube. With no need to charac-
terize medium properties within the wave tube, up- and
downgoing dissipative Green’s functions are retrieved in-
dividually. A scaling correction is applied so that their
weighted sum is verified with the physically recorded to-
tal Green’s function.
Reconciling numerical modeling and physical experi-
ments is an important step in establishing the appli-
cability of the Marchenko methods for attenuative me-
dia. Derivations of the Marchenko equations are based
on time reversal invariance, a property shared by the
acoustic wave equation, the electromagnetic wave equa-
tion and the Schrödinger equation [38]. We speculate
the dissipative Marchenko scheme is also applicable to
dissipative electromagnetic waves and dissipative quan-
tum systems. Although we implement the dissipative
Marchenko scheme in 1D, the theory was established in
3D. With the requirement of double-sided access, the dis-
sipative Marchenko scheme can be applied to medical
imaging, nondestructive testing and laboratory tests of
rocks, whereas applications to seismic reflection explo-
ration are not straightforward. A reasonable Q model
may be needed, either to compute the effectual reflec-
tion response for the dissipative Marchenko scheme, or
to compensate for the dissipation in the reflection re-
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10
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VII. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research
and innovation programme for funding the WAVES
project under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agree-
ment No. 641943. We are grateful to Kees Wapenaar
(Delft University of Technology), Patrick Elison, Miguel
Molerón (ETH Zürich) for discussions. Reviews from
Colin Thompson and Ali Özbek (Schlumberger Cam-
bridge Research), and two anonymous reviewers are much
appreciated.
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