This work pertains to numerical aspects of a finite element method based discontinuous functions. Our study focuses on the Interior Penalty Discontinuous Galerkin method (IPDGM) because of its high-level of flexibility for solving the full wave equation in heterogeneous media. We assess the performance of IPDGM through a comparison study with a spectral element method (SEM). We show that IPDGM is as accurate as SEM. In addition, we illustrate the efficiency of IPDGM when employed in a seismic imaging process by considering two-dimensional problems involving the Reverse Time Migration.

We propose a new Absorbing Boundary Condition (ABC) for the acoustic wave equation which is derived from a micro-local diagonalization process formerly defined by M.E. Taylor and which does not depend on the geometry of the surface bearing the ABC. By considering the principal symbol of the wave equation both in the hyperbolic and the elliptic regions, we show that a second-order ABC can be constructed as the combination of an existing first-order ABC and a Fourier-Robin condition. We compare the new ABC with other ABCs and we show that it performs well in simple configurations and that it improves the accuracy of the numerical solution without increasing the computational burden.

We present a new high order method in space and time for solving the wave equation, based on a new interpretation of the “Modified Equation” technique. Indeed, contrary to most of the works, we consider the time discretization before the space discretization. After the time discretization, an additional biharmonic operator appears, which can not be discretized by classical finite elements. We propose a new Discontinuous Galerkin method for the discretization of this operator, and we provide numerical experiments proving that the new method is more accurate than the classical Modified Equation technique with a lower computational burden.