Abstract: Several researches have confirmed the possibility of localizing small anomalies via Kirchhoff migration (KM); however, when the background information is unknown, small anomalies cannot be satisfactorily retrieved. This fact can be examined through the simulation results; however, related theoretical result to explain the reason of such phenomenon has not yet been investigated. In this contribution, we show that the imaging function of the KM can be expressed by an infinite series of the Bessel function of the first kind, material properties, and antenna arrangement, and applied alternative value of the background wavenumber. Based on the theoretical result, we explain why the exact location and shape of anomalies cannot be retrieved. The simulation results with synthetic data exhibited to support the theoretical result.
