Is the entropy Sq extensive or nonextensive.pdfVIP

a r X i v : c o n d - m a t / 0 4 0 9 6 3 1 v 1 [ c o n d - m a t .s t a t - m e c h ] 2 3 S e p 2 0 0 4 Is the entropy Sq extensive or nonextensive? ? Constantino Tsallis ? Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501, USA and Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas, Rua Xavier Sigaud 150, 22290-180 Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil (Dated: February 2, 2008) The cornerstones of Boltzmann-Gibbs and nonextensive statistical mechanics respectively are the entropies SBG ≡ ?k ∑W i=1 pi ln pi and Sq ≡ k (1 ? ∑W i=1 p q i )/(q ? 1) (q ∈ R ; S1 = SBG). Through them we revisit the concept of additivity, and illustrate the (not always clearly perceived) fact that (thermodynamical) extensivity has a well defined sense only if we specify the compo- sition law that is being assumed for the subsystems (say A and B). If the composition law is not explicitly indicated, it is tacitly assumed that A and B are statistically independent. In this case, it immediately follows that SBG(A + B) = SBG(A) + SBG(B), hence extensive, whereas Sq(A+B)/k = [Sq(A)/k]+ [Sq(B)/k]+ (1? q)[Sq(A)/k][Sq(B)/k], hence nonextensive for q 6= 1. In the present paper we illustrate the remarkable changes that occur when A and B are specially corre- lated. Indeed, we show that, in such case, Sq(A+B) = Sq(A)+Sq(B) for the appropriate value of q (hence extensive), whereas SBG(A+B) 6= SBG(A)+SBG(B) (hence nonextensive). We believe that these facts substantially improve the understanding of the mathematical need and physical origin of nonextensive statistical mechanics, and its interpretation in terms of effective occupation of the W a priori available microstates of the full phase space. In particular, we can appreciate the origin of the following important fact. In order to have entropic extensivity (i.e., limN→∞ S(N)/N ∞, where N ≡ number of elements of the system), we must use (i) SBG, if the number W eff of effectively occupied microstates increases with N like W eff ～ W ～ μN (μ ≥ 1); (i