Published In

Physical Review E

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-8-2018

Subjects

Distribution (Probability theory) -- Mathematical models, Asymptotic distribution (Probability theory), Thermodynamic equilibrium

Abstract

The canonical probability distribution describes a system in thermal equilibrium with an infinite heat bath. When the bath is finite the distribution is modified. These modifications can be derived by truncating a Taylor-series expansion of the entropy of the heat bath, but their form depends on the expansion parameter chosen. We consider two such expansions, which yield supercanonical (i.e., higher-order canonical) distributions of exponential and power-law form. The latter is identical in form to the "Tsallis distribution," which is therefore a valid asymptotic approximation for an arbitrary finite heat bath, but bears no intrinsic relation to Tsallis entropy.

Description

This is the publisher's final PDF. Article appears in Physical Review A (http://pra.aps.org/) and is copyrighted by APS Journals (http://publish.aps.org/) and is available online https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.98.020103

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevE.98.020103

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/26764

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