Inner product preconditioned trust-region methods for frequency-domain full waveform inversion

Full waveform inversion is a seismic imaging method which requires solving a large-scale minimization problem, typically through local optimization techniques. Most local optimization methods can basically be built up from two choices: the update direction and the strategy to control its length. In the context of full waveform inversion, this strategy is very often a line search. We here propose to use instead a trust-region method, in combination with non-standard inner products which act as preconditioners. More specifically, a line search and several trust-region variants of the steepest descent, the limited memory BFGS algorithm and the inexact Newton method are presented and compared. A strong emphasis is given to the inner product choice. For example, its link with preconditioning the update direction and its implication in the trust-region constraint are highlighted. A first numerical test is performed on a 2D synthetic model then a second configuration, containing two close reflectors, is studied. The latter configuration is known to be challenging because of multiple reflections. Based on these two case studies, the importance of an appropriate inner product choice is highlighted and the best trust-region method is selected and compared to the line search method. In particular we were able to demonstrate that using an appropriate inner product greatly improves the convergence of all the presented methods and that inexact Newton methods should be combined with trust-region methods to increase their convergence speed. •Unified presentation and comparison of line search and trust-region globalization methods.•Innovative introduction of preconditioning through the inner product.•Comprehensive comparison of the steepest, the l-BFGS and the Newton descent directions.•First extensive comparison of their combinations for full waveform inversion based on two case studies.