Full waveform inversion method based on diffusion model

arXiv cs.LG / 3/25/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper addresses challenges in seismic full-waveform inversion, including strong nonlinearity and sensitivity to initial models that can cause convergence to local minima.
  • It proposes a conditional diffusion-model regularization approach rather than relying on unconditional diffusion processes, aiming to better respect physical coupling between subsurface properties.
  • By feeding 2D density information as a conditional input into a U-Net–based diffusion backbone, the method constrains the inversion more effectively.
  • Experiments report improved resolution and structural fidelity, along with stronger stability and robustness in complex scenarios, highlighting practical applicability for seismic imaging.

Abstract

Seismic full-waveform inversion is a core technology for obtaining high-resolution subsurface model parameters. However, its highly nonlinear characteristics and strong dependence on the initial model often lead to the inversion process getting trapped in local minima. In recent years, generative diffusion models have provided a way to regularize full-waveform inversion by learning implicit prior distributions. However, existing methods mostly use unconditional diffusion processes, ignoring the inherent physical coupling relationship between velocity and density and other physical properties. This paper proposes a full-waveform inversion method based on conditional diffusion model regularization. By improving the backbone network structure of the diffusion model, two-dimensional density information is introduced as a conditional input into the U-Net network. Experimental results show that the full-waveform inversion method based on the conditional diffusion model significantly improves the resolution and structural fidelity of the inversion results, and exhibits stronger stability and robustness when dealing with complex situations. This method effectively utilizes density information to constrain the inversion and has good practical application value. Keywords: Deep learning; Diffusion model; Full waveform inversion.