The phase space elementary cell in classical and generalized statistics (Q280646)

The authors call the attention to the fact, that the phase-space element of the elementary cell (in classical, non-quantized) statistical mechanics has been chosen to the third power of the Planck constant. As they declare, this is not a necessary assumption. The paper is on the discussion how the phase-space volume and the number of states in the elementary cell change in the case of non-interacting \(N\)-particle system and an interaction is switched on so that the system becomes to a system of correlated non-Boltzmann particles, and they derive the appropriate expressions. lf it is assumed nowadays, that the volume of the elementary cell is equal to the cube of the Planck constant, (at least for quantum systems), there is a correspondence between the different values of \(h^3\) in the past. It is shown that this leads to important, and in principle measurable consequences in cosmology and astrophysics, in the case of an effectively smaller (or even largest) phase-space volume. This leads to the conclusion that the elementary cell measure is not a universal constant, it can have a measure which is slightly smaller than \(h^3\) in spite of the uncertainty principle. If it is assumed that the volume of the elementary cell could have been smaller in the past because \(h\) was smaller, one could correlate the evolution of \(h\) to the change of the effective volume of the elementary cell, due to stronger spatial and temporal correlations or to fractal measure of space when densities and interactions were stronger.