Nonadditive entropy reconciles the area law in quantum systems with classical thermodynamics

Abstract

The Boltzmann-Gibbs-von Neumann entropy of a large part (of linear size L ) of some (much larger) d -dimensional quantum systems follows the so-called area law (as for black holes), i.e., it is proportional to Ld-1. Here we show, for d=1,2 , that the (nonadditive) entropy Sq satisfies, for a special value of q not equal to 1, the classical thermodynamical prescription for the entropy to be extensive, i.e., Sq proportional variant Ld. Therefore, we reconcile with classical thermodynamics the area law widespread in quantum systems. Recently, a similar behavior was exhibited in mathematical models with scale-invariant correlations [C. Tsallis, M. Gell-Mann, and Y. Sato, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.102 15377 (2005)]. Finally, we find that the system critical features are marked by a maximum of the special entropic index q.