Clarify the relationship between Lighthill-type sound and perceived sound

Clarify the relationship between the acoustic quantities defined by the Lighthill acoustic analogy and the sound actually heard by observers, in order to establish the physical interpretation of Lighthill-type acoustic predictions.

Background

The paper uses the Lighthill acoustic analogy to define and analyze sound-related quantities generated by real Schur flows and other component-wise dimensionally reduced flows. However, the authors distinguish these mathematically defined acoustic fields from the perceptual sound experienced by a listener. They explicitly identify the connection between the two as unresolved, which limits the direct physical interpretation of the calculated acoustic observables.

References

Although the connection between such Lighthill-type ‘sound’ and what is ‘heard’ remains to be clarified further, to our point of view, the analogy nevertheless conveniently defines some ‘acoustics’ associated to the flow.

— Real Schur Flow Acoustic Directivity and Helicity Effects within  (2608.30840 - Xu et al., 31 Aug 2026) in Section I A, “CWDRF, acoustic analogy and statistical absolute equilibrium”