English

Statistical Mechanical Foundations for Systems with Nonexponential Distributions

Statistical Mechanics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

Traditionally the exponential canonical distributions of Gibbsian statistical mechanics are given theoretical justification in at least four different ways: steepest descent method, counting method, Khinchin's method based on te central limit theorem, and maximum entropy principle of Jaynes. Equally ubiquitous power-law canonical distributions are shown to be given similar justification by appropriately adopting these formulations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0003493,
  title  = {Statistical Mechanical Foundations for Systems with Nonexponential Distributions},
  author = {A. K. Rajagopal and Sumiyoshi Abe},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0003493},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

17pages. Invited talk at International Workshop on Classical and Quantum Complexity and Nonextensive Thermodynamics (3-6 April, 2000, Denton, Texas)