Comment on "Application of the variable projection scheme for frequency-domain full-waveform inversion" (M. Li, J. Rickett, and A. Abubakar, GEOPHYSICS, 78, no. 6, R249-R257)

Abstract

In the paper “Application of the variable projection scheme for frequency-domain full-waveform inversion,” Li et al. (2013) discuss a method for source estimation in the context of frequency-domain full-waveform inversion (FWI). This method is an extension of earlier work by Aravkin et al. (2012), and Li et al. (2013) suggest similar improvements as concurrent work by Aravkin and van Leeuwen (2012). We have read the work by Li et al. (2013) with great pleasure but feel that their claims are not fully supported by numerical experiments. The goal of this discussion paper is twofold.