When simulating seismic wave propagation in free space, it is essential to introduce absorbing boundary conditions to eliminate reflections from artificially trtmcated boundaries. In this paper, a damping factor referred to as the Gaussian dmping factor is proposed. The Gaussian damping factor is based on the idea of perfectly matched layers （PMLs）. This work presents a detailed analysis of the theoretical foundations and advantages of the Gaussian damping factor. Additionally, numerical experiments for the simulation of seismic waves are presented based on two numerical models： a homogeneous model and a multi-layer model. The results show that the proposed factor works better. The Gaussian damping factor achieves a higher Signal-to-Noise Ratio （SNR） than previously used factors when using same number of PMLs, and requires less PMLs than other methods to achieve an identical SNR.
