On the Green function in visco-elastic media obeying a frequency power-law

In this work, we present an explicit expression for the Green function in a visco‐elastic medium. We choose Szabo and Wu's frequency power law model to describe the visco‐elastic properties and derive a generalized visco‐elastic wave equation. We express the ideal Green function (without any viscous effect) in terms of the viscous Green function using an attenuation operator. By means of an approximation of the ideal Green function, we address the problem of reconstructing a small anomaly in a visco‐elastic medium from wavefield measurements. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.