title: Microcanonical origin of the maximum entropy principle for open systems.
abstract: There are two distinct approaches for deriving the canonical ensemble. The canonical ensemble either follows as a special limit of the microcanonical ensemble or alternatively follows from the maximum entropy principle. We show the equivalence of these two approaches by applying the maximum entropy formulation to a closed universe consisting of an open system plus bath. We show that the target function for deriving the canonical distribution emerges as a natural consequence of partial maximization of the entropy over the bath degrees of freedom alone. By extending this mathematical formalism to dynamical paths rather than equilibrium ensembles, the result provides an alternative justification for the principle of path entropy maximization as well.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatics and Life Science, Soongsil University, Seoul 156-743, Korea. jul@ssu.ac.kr
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pressé
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003198:Computer Simulation; D019277:Entropy; D006358:Hot Temperature; D015233:Models, Statistical; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010825:Physics / Q000379:methods*; D011336:Probability; D013696:Temperature