Size and duration of the high-frequency radiator in the source of the 2004 December 26 Sumatra earthquake

We recover the gross space–time characteristics of high-frequency (HF) radiator of the great Sumatra-Andaman islands earthquake of 2004 December 26 (M w = 9.1–9.3) using the time histories of the power of radiated HF P waves. To determine these time histories we process teleseismic P waves at 36 BB stations, using, in sequence: (1) bandpass filtering (four bands: 0.4–1.2, 1.2–2, 2–3 and 3–4 Hz); (2) squaring wave amplitudes, making ‘power signals’ for each band and (3) stripping the propagation-related distortion (P coda, etc.) from the power signal and thus recovering source time function for HF power. In step (3) we employ an inverse filter constructed from an empirical Green’s function, which is estimated as the power signal from an aftershock. For each ray we thus obtain signals with relatively well-defined end and no coda. From these signals we extract: total duration (joint estimate for all four bands) and temporal centroid of signal power for each band. Through linear inversion, the set of duration values for a set of rays delivers estimates of the rupture stopping point and stopping time. Similarly, the set of temporal centroids can be inverted to obtain the position of the space– time centroid of HF energy radiator. The quality of inversion for centroid is acceptable for lower-frequency bands but deteriorates for higher-frequency bands where only a fraction of stations provide useful data. For the source length and duration the following joint estimates were obtained: 1241 ± 224 km, 550 ± 10 s. The estimated stopping point position corresponds to the northern extremity of the aftershock zone. Spatial HF radiation centroids are located at distances 350–700 km from the epicentre, in a systematic way: the higher is the frequency, the farther is the centroid from the epicentre. Average rupture propagation velocity is estimated as 2.25 km s–1.