Entropy and complexity properties of the d-dimensional blackbody radiation

Abstract

Space dimensionality is a crucial variable in the analysis of the structure and dynamics of natural systems and phenomena. The dimensionality effects of the blackbody radiation has been the subject of considerable research activity in recent years. These studies are still somewhat fragmentary, pos- ing formidable qualitative and quantitative problems for various scientific and technological areas. In this work we carry out an information-theoretical analysis of the spectral energy density of a d-dimensional blackbody at temperature T by means of various entropy-like quantities (disequilibrium, Shannon entropy, Fisher information) as well as by three (dimensionless) complexity measures (Cr\'amer-Rao, Fisher-Shannon and LMC). All these frequency-functional quantities are calculated and discussed in terms of temperature and dimensionality. It is shown that all three measures of complexity have an universal character in the sense that they depend neither on temperature nor on the Planck and Boltzmann constants, but only on the the space dimensionality d. Moreover, they decrease when d is increasing; in particular, the values 2.28415, 1.90979 and 1.17685 are found for the Cr\'amer-Rao, Fisher-Shannon and LMC measures of complexity of the 3-dimensional blackbody radiation, respectively. In addition, beyond the frequency at which the spectral density is maximum (which follows the well-known Wien displacement law), three further characteristic frequencies are defined in terms of the previous entropy quantities; they are shown to obey Wien-like laws. The potential usefulness of these distinctive features of the blackbody spectrum is physically discussed.