NONEXTENSIVE STATISTICAL MECHANICS — APPLICATIONS TO NUCLEAR AND HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS

Abstract

A variety of phenomena in nuclear and high energy physics seemingly do not satisfy the basic hypothesis for possible stationary states to be of the type covered by Boltzmann-Gibbs (BG) statistical mechanics. More specifically, the system appears to relax, along time, on macroscopic states which violate the ergodic assumption. Some of these phenomena appear to follow, instead, the prescriptions of nonextensive statistical mechanics. In the same manner that the BG formalism is based on the entropy $S_{BG}=-k \sum_i p_i \ln p_i$, the nonextensive one is based on the form $S_q=k(1-\sum_ip_i^q)/(q-1)$ (with $S_1=S_{BG}$). Typically, the systems following the rules derived from the former exhibit an {\it exponential} relaxation with time toward a stationary state characterized by an {\it exponential} dependence on the energy ({\it thermal equilibrium}), whereas those following the rules derived from the latter are characterized by (asymptotic) {\it power-laws} (both the typical time dependences, and the energy distribution at the stationary state). A brief review of this theory is given here, as well as of some of its applications, such as electron-positron annihilation producing hadronic jets, collisions involving heavy nuclei, the solar neutrino problem, anomalous diffusion of a quark in a quark-gluon plasma, and flux of cosmic rays on Earth. In addition to these points, very recent developments generalizing nonextensive statistical mechanics itself are mentioned.