A relation of thermodynamic relevance between the superadditivity, concavity and homogeneity properties of real-valued functions (Q2073434)

The author proves a necessary and sufficient condition for the validity of the following Landsberg-Thirring theorem: Let \(x\rightarrow f(x)\) be a map from a convex set of \(\mathbb{R}^{d}\) into \(\mathbb{R}\). Then any two of the conditions (Homogeneity) \(f(\lambda x)=\lambda f(x)\) for all \(\lambda \in \mathbb{R}_{+}\); (Superadditivity) \(f(x_{1}+x_{2})\geq f(x_{1})+f(x_{2})\); (Concavity) \(f(\lambda x_{1}+(1-\lambda )x_{2})\geq \lambda f(x_{1})+(1-\lambda )f(x_{2})\) for \(0\leq \lambda \leq 1\), imply the third one. The main result of the paper proves that if \(X\) is a convex open cone in \( \mathbb{R}^{d}\), \(1\leq d<\infty \), with closure \(\overline{X}\) in \(\mathbb{R }^{d}\), such that \(\overline{X}\) is a closed convex cone and \((0,\ldots ,0)\in \overline{X}\setminus X\) and if \(f\) is a real-valued function on \(X\), a necessary and sufficient condition for the statement that any two of the properties (Homogeneity), (Superadditivity) and (Concavity) for \(f\) imply the third is \(\lim \inf_{(x_{1},\ldots ,x_{d})\rightarrow (0,\ldots ,0)}f(x_{1},\ldots ,x_{d})\geq 0\). For the proof, the author focuses on the 1D case and he uses direct computations and continuity arguments. The paper ends with three applications of this result to statistical thermodynamics. The author first proves that thermodynamic stability fails for the model of \( N\) fermions interacting via Newtonian attractions. He then proves that the Beckenstein-Hawking entropy function associated with a Kerr-Newman black-hole is not a true statistical thermodynamical entropy. He finally proves that the entropy of the free photon gas has curious properties from the thermodynamical standpoint.