It has been shown by many authors that the cross correlation of two recordings of a diffuse wave field at different receivers yields the Green’s function between these receivers. Recently the theory has been extended for situations where time-reversal invariance does not hold (e.g., in attenuating media) and where source-receiver reciprocity breaks down (in moving fluids). Here we present a unified theory for Green’s function retrieval that captures all these situations and, because of the unified form, readily extends to more complex situations, such as electrokinetic Green’s function retrieval in poroelastic or piezoelectric media. The unified theory has a wide range of applications in “remote sensing without a source.”

• Received 1 September 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.234301