Computational recipes for electromagnetic inverse problems

The Jacobian of the non-linear mapping from model parameters to observations is a key component in all gradient-based inversion methods, including variants on Gauss-Newton and non-linear conjugate gradients. Here, we develop a general mathematical framework for Jacobian computations arising in electromagnetic (EM) geophysical inverse problems. Our analysis, which is based on the discrete formulation of the forward problem, divides computations into components (data functionals, forward and adjoint solvers, model parameter mappings), and clarifies dependencies among these elements within realistic numerical inversion codes. To be concrete, we focus much of the specific discussion on 2-D and 3-D magnetotelluric…