A Comparison of Strategies for Seismic Interferometry

The extraction of the response from field fluctuations excited by random sources has received considerable attention in a variety of different fields. We present three methods for the extraction of the systems response that are based on cross-correlation, deconvolution, and the solution of an integral equation, respectively. For systems that are invariant for time-reversal the correlation method requires random sources on a bounding surface only, but when time-reversal invariance is broken, for example by attenuation, a volume distribution of sources is needed. For this reason the correlation method is not useful for diffusive or strongly attenuating systems. We provide examples of the three methods and compare their merits and drawbacks. We show that the extracted field may satisfy different boundary conditions than does the physical field. This can be used, for example, to suppress surface-related multiples in exploration seismology, to study the coupling of buildings to the subsurface, and to remove the airwave in controlled source electromagnetics (CSEM).