Information in statistical physics

DOI10.1016/J.SHPSB.2005.02.001MaRDI QIDQ640234zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Roger Balian

Publication date 17 October 2011

Published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Part B. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0501322

zbMATH Keywords

inferencequantum probabilitiesirreversibility paradoxreduced descriptionrelevant entropies

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Information theory (general) (94A15) Measures of information, entropy (94A17) Foundations of equilibrium statistical mechanics (82B03)

Abstract: We review with a tutorial scope the information theory foundations of quantum statistical physics. Only a small proportion of the variables that characterize a system at the microscopic scale can be controlled, for both practical and theoretical reasons, and a probabilistic description involving the observers is required. The criterion of maximum von Neumann entropy is then used for making reasonable inferences. It means that no spurious information is introduced besides the known data. Its outcomes can be given a direct justification based on the principle of indifference of Laplace. We introduce the concept of relevant entropy associated with some set of relevant variables; it characterizes the information that is missing at the microscopic level when only these variables are known. For equilibrium problems, the relevant variables are the conserved ones, and the Second Law is recovered as a second step of the inference process. For non-equilibrium problems, the increase of the relevant entropy expresses an irretrievable loss of information from the relevant variables towards the irrelevant ones. Two examples illustrate the flexibility of the choice of relevant variables and the multiplicity of the associated entropies: the thermodynamic entropy (satisfying the Clausius-Duhem inequality) and the Boltzmann entropy (satisfying the H-theorem). The identification of entropy with missing information is also supported by the paradox of Maxwell's demon. Spin-echo experiments show that irreversibility itself is not an absolute concept: use of hidden information may overcome the arrow of time.

Recommendations

• Information vs. entropy vs. probability
• A farewell to entropy: statistical thermodynamics based on information.
• On informational statistical thermodynamics
• Papers on probability, statistics and statistical physics. Ed. by R. D. Rosenkrantz.
• (Ir)reversibility and entropy

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Cited in

(20)

• Information vs. entropy vs. probability
• In defense of Gibbs and the traditional definition of the entropy of distinguishable particles
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3185241 (Why is no real title available?)
• Jean-Louis Koszul and the elementary structures of information geometry
• Information entropy in problems of classical and quantum statistical mechanics
• On informational statistical thermodynamics
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2145733 (Why is no real title available?)
• On Gibbs states of mechanical systems with symmetries
• Macroscopic time evolution and MaxEnt inference for closed systems with Hamiltonian dynamics
• Statistical Physics and Information Theory
• Emergence of jumps in quantum trajectories via homogenization
• Shannon entropy: a rigorous notion at the crossroads between probability, information theory, dynamical systems and statistical physics
• Information dynamics of a particle in a magnetic field
• Algorithmic information and simplicity in statistical physics
• Informational branching universe
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• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1098622 (Why is no real title available?)
• Understanding quantum measurement from the solution of dynamical models
• Information-probabilistic description of the universe
• The entropy-based quantum metric

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