English

Generalized entropy arising from a distribution of q-indices

Statistical Mechanics 2009-11-10 v1

Abstract

It is by now well known that the Boltzmann-Gibbs (BG) entropy SBG=ki=1WpilnpiS_{BG}=-k\sum_{i=1}^W p_i \ln p_i can be usefully generalized into the entropy Sq=k(1i=1Wpiq)/(q1)S_q=k (1-\sum_{i=1}^Wp_i^{q}) / (q-1) (qR;S1=SBGq\in \mathcal{R}; S_1=S_{BG}). Microscopic dynamics determines, given classes of initial conditions, the occupation of the accessible phase space (or of a symmetry-determined nonzero-measure part of it), which in turn appears to determine the entropic form to be used. This occupation might be a uniform one (the usual {\it equal probability hypothesis} of BG statistical mechanics), which corresponds to q=1q=1; it might be a free-scale occupancy, which appears to correspond to q1q \ne 1. Since occupancies of phase space more complex than these are surely possible in both natural and artificial systems, the task of further generalizing the entropy appears as a desirable one, and has in fact been already undertaken in the literature. To illustrate the approach, we introduce here a quite general entropy based on a distribution of qq-indices thus generalizing SqS_q. We establish some general mathematical properties for the new entropic functional and explore some examples. We also exhibit a procedure for finding, given any entropic functional, the qq-indices distribution that produces it. Finally, on the road to establishing a quite general statistical mechanics, we briefly address possible generalized constraints under which the present entropy could be extremized, in order to produce canonical-ensemble-like stationary-state distributions for Hamiltonian systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0412329,
  title  = {Generalized entropy arising from a distribution of q-indices},
  author = {Giorgos-Artemios Tsekouras and Constantino Tsallis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0412329},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

14 pages including 3 figures