The core mantle boundary (CMB) features the most dramatic contrast in the physical properties within the Earth and plays a fundamental role in the understanding of the dynamic evolution of the Earth’s interior. Seismic core phases such as PKKP sample large area of the lowermost mantle and the uppermost core, thus providing valuable information of the velocity structures on both sides of the CMB. Diffraction Waves Well Beyond Cutoff Distance (PKKPab) is one branch of the triplicated PKKP that can be observed beyond its ray theoretical cutoff distance as a result of diffraction along the CMB. The travel time and slowness of the diffracted PKKPab (denoted as PKKPabdiff) can be used to constrain the P-wave velocities at the lowermost mantle, thus have been investigated in numerous studies. Previous results (Rost and Garnero, 2006) suggest that most of the observations of the PKKPabdiff waves are in the epicentral distance range of 95°–105° (minor arc convention) (PKKPabdiff diffraction length less than 10°). However, high-frequency (∼1 Hz) synthetic seismograms show that the PKKPabdiff waveforms could be observable at distance down to 65°, which indicates that the PKKPabdiff signals could be detected at distances less than 95° in observations. To explore the distance ranges in which PKKPabdiff is observable, we collected global three-component broadband waveforms from 246 events with source depth deeper than 100 km and magnitude above M 6 from 2007 to 2017 available at the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology Data Management Center. We analyzed the slowness, polarization, and amplitude of the candidate PKKPabdiff signals, and found 95 events with clear PKKPabdiffsignals, with nearly 60% of the events show PKKPabdiff diffraction lengths greater than 10°, and the longest diffraction distance is beyond 20°. These newly identified PKKPabdiff waves would substantially augment the dataset of core phases for improvements of the CMB velocity models.

Summary Diffractions of PKKPab (${\rm{PKKP}}_{{\rm{ab}}}^{{\rm{diff}}}$) along the core mantle boundary (CMB) have been observed well beyond its cutoff distance in recent studies, making it useful for improving the spatial sampling to constrain the lowermost mantle velocity structures. However, the diffractions of PKKPab waves may occur at one of the three CMB interaction points (core entry, underside reflection and exit), giving rise to uncertainties of the sampling region. Moreover, the sensitivity kernels of the non-geometrical ${\rm{PKKP}}_{{\rm{ab}}}^{{\rm{diff}}}$ in the lowermost mantle are difficult to obtain with classical ray theory, and can be expected to be more complicated than the typical banana-doughnut shape for direct arrivals. In this study, we address these two issues by analyzing the finite-frequency delay-time sensitivity kernels of the ${\rm{PKKP}}_{{\rm{ab}}}^{{\rm{diff}}}$ waves computed by numerical algorithms based on full-wave theory. We find that the diffraction effects for the ${\rm{PKKP}}_{{\rm{ab}}}^{{\rm{diff}}}$ waves are most significant near their core entry and exit regions. For a dominant period of 1 s, the estimated widths of the first Fresnel zones on the mantle side of these two areas are about 60 km. To further investigate the sensitivities of ${\rm{PKKP}}_{{\rm{ab}}}^{{\rm{diff}}}$ to different structures in the lowermost mantle, we conduct a series of 1D and 2D high-frequency (∼1 Hz) modelling experiments. Our results show that the travel times and amplitudes of the ${\rm{PKKP}}_{{\rm{ab}}}^{{\rm{diff}}}$ waves are sensitive to large-scale P-wave anomalies (with Vp perturbations of ± 2 per cent and thicknesses of more than 100 km) and small-scale ultra-low velocity zones (ULVZs) (with Vp reduction of 5 per cent or 10 per cent and thickness of tens of kilometers). However, the slownesses of the ${\rm{PKKP}}_{{\rm{ab}}}^{{\rm{diff}}}\ $waves remain nearly unchanged in the perturbed models. We explain this unexpected result by the differential delay-time sensitivity kernels for stations at similar epicentral distances. Our results demonstrate both the advantages and limitations of the ${\rm{PKKP}}_{{\rm{ab}}}^{{\rm{diff}}}$ waves in studying the structures at the base of the mantle.