Fisher and Jensen–Shannon divergences: Quantitative comparisons among distributions. Application to position and momentum atomic densities

Abstract

The Fisher divergence (FD) and Jensen-Shannon divergence (JSD) are used in this work with the aim of providing quantitative measures of the discrepancies between two arbitrary D-dimensional distribution functions, the FD being of local character and the JSD of global one. In doing so, the concepts of Fisher information and Shannon entropy associated to a distribution are the essential quantities for building up these comparative functionals. This kind of relative measures are here applied to the study of the one-particle densities in both conjugated spaces (position and momentum) of neutral atoms, discussing the results as compared to those provided by other previous functional measures. It is clearly shown how these divergences provide relevant information on the atomic shell structure, up to a level which depends on the considered space and measure.