Abstract
The oil industry aims, through the seismic method, to image subsurface structures to obtain information
on stratigraphic features and geological structures. The proper mapping of the seismic data in their
respective positions requires the determination of the seismic wave propagation velocity in each
subsurface position. Obtaining this velocity model has been constantly researched in the geophysical
community for several years, and is a crucial part of techniques such as seismic tomography, seismic
migration, and full-waveform inversion. This work, therefore, consists in proposing an approach to
show that it is possible to use gate-based quantum computing in seismic velocity determination
problems. For this, we create a model of parallel plane layers of velocities and obtain the travel time.
For this, a model of plane layers was created and the velocities in the subsurface were determined
through the methods QAOA and Warm-Start Quantum Optimization, both considered as near-term
quantum heuristics.