2005/05/31 by M. Costeniuc, Marius Costeniuc, R. S. Ellis +5 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #Statistical Mechanics and Entropy #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.73.026105
published as Phys. Rev. E 73, 026105, 2006 · 8 pages, 4 figures (best viewed in ps), revtex4. Changes in v2: Title changed, references updated, new paragraph added, minor differences with published version
openalex publication_date 2006/02/06 · arxiv created 2006/02/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
This paper is a companion piece to our previous work [J. Stat. Phys. 119, 1283 (2005)], which introduced a generalized canonical ensemble obtained by multiplying the usual Boltzmann weight factor of the canonical ensemble with an exponential factor involving a continuous function of the Hamiltonian . We provide here a simplified introduction to our previous work, focusing now on a number of physical rather than mathematical aspects of the generalized canonical ensemble. The main result discussed is that, for suitable choices of , the generalized canonical ensemble reproduces, in the thermodynamic limit, all the microcanonical equilibrium properties of the many-body system represented by even if this system has a nonconcave microcanonical entropy function. This is something that in general the standard canonical ensemble cannot achieve. Thus a virtue of the generalized canonical ensemble is that it can often be made equivalent to the microcanonical ensemble in cases in which the canonical ensemble cannot. The case of quadratic functions is discussed in detail; it leads to the so-called Gaussian ensemble.