The head-wave transform

Abstract

We introduce and study a new integral ray transform called the head-wave transform. The head-wave transform integrates a function along a piecewise linear (in general geodesic) path consisting of three parts. The geometry of such paths corresponds to ray paths of head-waves propagating in a medium with sharp changes in sound speed. The middle part of the ray paths corresponds to gliding along the so-called gliding surface. As our main results, we prove inversion formulas and null space characterizations under multiple different sets of assumptions on the geometry of the gliding surface and the integrand function.