Absorptive nature of scattering coefficients in stress-energy tensor formalism for room acoustics.

In the stress-energy tensor formalism, the symmetry between absorption and scattering coefficients, as proven by measurements combined with simulations, is counterintuitive. By introducing the wall admittance, we show that the scattering coefficient is partly created by the real part of the wall admittance combined with the active intensity, that is, is partly due to absorption. However, for curved surfaces or finite source distances, it also depends on the imaginary part of the wall admittance in combination with the reactive intensity, which confers its genuine scattering properties inversely proportional to the distances to the sources. Thus, for plane waves impinging on plane boundaries, or purely real admittances, scattering reduces to absorption.