A stable staggered-grid finite-difference scheme for acoustic modeling beyond conventional stability limit

Staggered-grid finite-difference (SGFD) schemes have been widely used in acoustic wave modeling for geophysical problems. Many improved methods are proposed to enhance the accuracy of numerical modeling. However, these methods are inevitably limited by the maximum Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) numbers, making them unstable when modeling with large time sampling intervals or small grid spacings. To solve this problem, we extend a stable SGFD scheme by controlling SGFD dispersion relations and maximizing the maximum CFL numbers. First, to improve modeling stability, we minimize the error between the FD dispersion relation and the exact relation in the given wave-number region, and make the FD dispersion approach a given function outside the given wave-number area, thus breaking the conventional limits of the maximum CFL number. Second, to obtain high modeling accuracy, we use the SGFD scheme based on the Remez algorithm to compute the FD coefficients. In addition, the hybrid absorbing boundary condition is adopted to suppress boundary reflections and we find a suitable weighting coefficient for the proposed scheme. Theoretical derivation and numerical modeling demonstrate that the proposed scheme can maintain high accuracy in the modeling process and the value of the maximum CFL number of the proposed scheme can exceed that of the conventional SGFD scheme when adopting a small maximum effective wavenumber, indicating that the proposed scheme improves stability during the modeling.