A physical solution for plane SH waves in anelastic media

In a lossy medium with complex frequency-dependent wave speed both rays and plane waves at an interface should satisfy the dispersion relation (that is, the wave equation), the radiation condition (the amplitude should go to zero at infinity) and the horizontal complex slowness should be continuous (Snell’s law). It is known that this may lead to a transmitted wave which violates the radiation condition and which also causes problems with the phase of the reflec- tion coefficient. In fact, ray-tracing algorithms and analytical evaluations of the reflection and transmission coefficients in anelastic media may lead to non-physical solutions related to the complex square roots of the vertical slowness and polarizations. The steepest-descent approxi- mation with complex horizontal slowness involves non-physical complex horizontal distances, and in some cases also a non-physical vertical slowness that violates the radiation condition. Similarly, the reflection and transmission coefficients and ray-tracing codes obtained with this approach yields wrong results. In order to tackle this problem, we choose the stationary-phase approximation with real horizontal slowness. This gives real horizontal distances, the radiation condition is always satisfied and the reflection and transmission coefficients are correct. This is shown by comparison to full-wave space-time modelling results by computing the reflection and transmission coefficients and respective phase angles from synthetic seismograms. This numerical evaluation is based on a 2-D wavenumber-frequency Fourier transform. The results indicate that the stationary-phase method with a real horizontal slowness provides the correct physical solution.