Reverse Time Migration for Extended Obstacles: Electromagnetic Waves

Abstract: We propose a new single frequency reverse time migration (RTM) algorithm for imaging extended targets using electromagnetic waves. The imaging functional is defined as the imaginary part of the cross-correlation of the Green function for Helmholtz equation and the back-propagated electromagnetic field. The resolution of our RTM method for both penetrable and non-penetrable extended targets is studied by virtue of Helmholtz-Kirchhoff identity for the time-harmonic Maxwell equation. The analysis implies that our imaging functional is always positive and thus may have better stability properties. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the powerful imaging quality and confirm our theoretical results.