9419084 Papanicolaou Radiative transport theory is the principle tool for analyzing the incoherent transport of seismic energy in the earth's crust, which is a very complex, inhomogeneous elastic medium. But its use at present is limited to isotropic structures of infinite extend and does not account for: (i) energy transfer among different elastic wave modes, including surface waves, (ii) the anisotropic nature of the inhomogeneities in the earth's crust, (iii) the large scale structure and discontinuities in the mean propagation speeds (the Moho discontinuity, for example), (iv) coherent effects in the process of energy transfer. Papanicolaou and Wu propose to collaborate on developing the foundations of radiative transport theory in seismic wave propagation in a systematic and flexible way so that the above shortcomings can be minimized, or eliminated if possible. We will use our extensive understanding of theoretical, computational and empirical methods for the analysis of waves in random media.
