English

On some entropy functionals derived from R\'enyi information divergence

Information Theory 2008-12-18 v1 Other Condensed Matter math.IT

Abstract

We consider the maximum entropy problems associated with R\'enyi QQ-entropy, subject to two kinds of constraints on expected values. The constraints considered are a constraint on the standard expectation, and a constraint on the generalized expectation as encountered in nonextensive statistics. The optimum maximum entropy probability distributions, which can exhibit a power-law behaviour, are derived and characterized. The R\'enyi entropy of the optimum distributions can be viewed as a function of the constraint. This defines two families of entropy functionals in the space of possible expected values. General properties of these functionals, including nonnegativity, minimum, convexity, are documented. Their relationships as well as numerical aspects are also discussed. Finally, we work out some specific cases for the reference measure Q(x)Q(x) and recover in a limit case some well-known entropies.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0805.0129,
  title  = {On some entropy functionals derived from R\'enyi information divergence},
  author = {Jean-François Bercher},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0805.0129},
  year   = {2008}
}
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