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Large-deviation variational mechanics and ensemble inequivalence
1 · Prerequisites
- Absolute and Conditional Convergence; Rearrangement; Products
- Binary Operations, Monoids, Groups and Subgroups
- Compactness
- Compactness in Metric Spaces
- Completeness, Completion, and Uniform Continuity
- Construction of the Natural Numbers
- Construction of the Real Numbers via Cauchy Sequences
- Construction of the Real Numbers via Dedekind Cuts
- Continuity, IVT, EVT, and Uniform Continuity
- Countability and Uncountability
- Finite Counting, Factorials and Binomial Coefficients
- Finite Probability Spaces and Random Variables
- Foundations of the Real Numbers for Analysis
- Independence Borel Cantelli and Zero One Laws
- Limits of Real Functions
- limsup, liminf, and Subsequential Limits
- Measurable Functions and Simple Approximation
- Measures and Their Basic Properties
- Method of Types and Finite Large Deviations
- Metric Spaces
- Monotone Functions, Discontinuities, and Continuity Sets
- Monotone Sequences, Bolzano-Weierstrass, and Cauchy Completeness
- Order, Zorn's Lemma, and the Axiom of Choice
- Power Series and Real-Analytic Functions
- Probability Spaces Random Variables and Expectation
- Properties of the Integral and the Working FTC
- Quantum Communication and Fingerprinting
- Quantum Information Measures
- Relations, Functions, and Quotients
- Roots, Rational Powers, and Classical Inequalities
- Sequences and Limits
- Sequences and Series of Functions; Uniform Convergence
- Series: Convergence and the Nonnegative Tests
- Sigma Algebras and Borel Sets
- Subspaces, Products, and Quotients
- Suprema and Infima
- The Derivative and the Mean Value Theorems
- The Exponential Function
- The Logarithm and General Powers
- The Riemann Integral: Definition and Integrability
- The ZFC Axioms and the Basic Set Constructions
- Topological Spaces and Continuity
- Topology of ℝ
- Vector Spaces, Linear Subspaces, Span and Direct Sums
2 · Summary
3 · Logical flowchart
4 · Definitions, postulates, theorems and proofs
Finite-alphabet mean-field probability ensembles
Definition
Let be a finite nonempty alphabet, let be a probability vector with for every , and write with the metric and its induced topology, called the topology. This is a metric: symmetry, nonnegativity and separation follow coordinatewise, and the triangle inequality follows by summing . For each integer , the configuration space is with the full power-set -algebra. Its reference probability is the product law , which gives the word mass . By The finite product law has iid coordinate maps, this mass assignment is normalized and is a probability law; explicitly, . The empirical macrostate is the probability vector Thus is the empirical type defined by the finite-alphabet supplier.
For a continuous function and a real parameter , define the finite canonical normalizer and word law by The normalizer is finite and positive because the sum is finite and every summand is finite and positive. The canonical macrostate law is the probability measure on Borel subsets that assigns mass
For a real-valued function on a nonempty set , define and ; either set is empty if the corresponding extremum is not attained. For , set omitting zero-mass terms, as in the finite relative-entropy convention. For , define the constrained cost, entropy, canonical variational set, and constrained variational set by For and an event with , define the conditional probability by . For , the microcanonical shell event is . Whenever , its microcanonical shell law is the conditional probability .
Compact-space Laplace principle and exponential tilting
Statement
Let be a nonempty compact metric space and let be Borel probability measures on . Let be lower semicontinuous, meaning that is open for every real , and not identically . Assume the speed- large-deviation bounds with and . Let be continuous and put For Borel , define the normalized exponential tilt Here a good rate function is a lower semicontinuous map whose sublevel sets are compact for every real . Then is finite and positive, and satisfies a speed- large-deviation principle with the good rate function . Its zero set is precisely , with .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The compact metric space, measures, rate function, LDP bounds, and continuous tilt in the Statement.
The LDP hypothesis is the open-set lower bound and closed-set upper bound written in the Statement, at speed .
is nonempty compact metric, is lower semicontinuous in the superlevel-set sense defined in the Statement with at least one finite value, and is continuous. Here compactness means that every cover of by sets open in its metric topology has a finite subcover. For an extended-real function , upper semicontinuity means that is open for every real .
Proof
For each integer , put . These sets are open by continuity of : if , continuity gives a neighborhood on which , hence . They cover because every real is less than some positive integer. By the finite-open-cover meaning of compactness in [A2], finitely many cover , with since is nonempty. Let ; then for every . Thus is bounded above and below. This uses the explicitly defined cover and a maximum of finitely many integers, without any simultaneous choice of pointwise neighborhoods. Since is not identically , choose with . Therefore , so is finite. The integrand is bounded above and bounded below by the positive constant , and is a probability measure, hence and is a probability measure.
Let be open, let with , and let . Continuity of gives an open neighborhood with and for every . Hence . By [A1], the logarithm of this integral divided by has liminf at least . Taking the supremum over finite-rate and then proves the open-set integral lower bound .
Let be closed and put , with . If , its integral is zero and the required bound is immediate. Since is bounded and , either is finite or . Suppose first that is finite, and fix . For each with , lower semicontinuity of and continuity of give an open neighborhood on which and . Choose a ball centered at with . For each with , choose ; lower semicontinuity gives an open neighborhood on which , and choose such a ball . Take the family of all centered balls satisfying these conditions; it covers . A closed subset of compact is compact: adjoining to any relative open cover of gives an open cover of . Thus finitely many admissible balls suffice, and only finitely many centers and neighborhood witnesses are selected. Put for the resulting centers. Each is closed. At a finite-rate center, at an infinite-rate center, The integral over is bounded by the finite sum . Applying [A1] to each closed and using that a finite sum has logarithmic limsup no greater than its largest summand gives Letting proves the localized bound in this case. If , every point of has infinite . For any real , lower semicontinuity gives, at each , an open neighborhood with ; take all centered balls with closures in such neighborhoods and then a finite subcover of . The corresponding closed pieces then satisfy . The same finite-sum and LDP argument gives a logarithmic limsup at most . Since is arbitrary, this limsup is . Thus in all cases
Taking in step 1.2 and in step 1.3 gives and , proving the log-Laplace limit. The function is lower semicontinuous, is nonnegative by the definition of , and has compact sublevel sets because those sets are closed in compact . To prove attainment, set , which is upper semicontinuous and bounded above by . For every integer , the set is closed and nonempty by the definition of ; these sets are nested. Compactness gives : otherwise their open complements would cover , and a finite subcover would contradict that a nested finite intersection is nonempty. Every point of this intersection has for all , hence and therefore . Equality holds exactly when , so its nonempty zero set is precisely the stated maximizing set.
For open , apply the open-set integral lower bound from step 1.2 and subtract the log-normalizer limit in step 2.1. Since , this is the LDP lower bound for .
For closed , apply the closed-set integral upper bound from step 1.3 and subtract the log-normalizer limit in step 2.1. Since , this is the LDP upper bound for .
Finite-alphabet mean-field ensembles and upper supporting lines
Statement
Let be finite and nonempty, let for every , and let be continuous, where is the probability simplex with its topology. Let be the empirical probability vector of an -word drawn from , and use with zero-mass terms omitted. For , the canonical word law weights proportionally to .
The canonical macrostate law of satisfies a speed- large-deviation principle with rate Thus its canonical equilibrium macrostate set is .
For , let , , and . If there is a sequence for which then the iterated microcanonical shell limit exists and is In the same iterated limit, for every open neighborhood of , Finally, and a macrostate is canonical at exactly when and maximizes . Equivalently, is a canonical energy at exactly when is an upper supporting affine function for on the whole energy range. An energy with no upper supporting line for any slope is not realized by a canonical ensemble.
Statement references
Finite-alphabet mean-field probability ensembles
Compact-space Laplace principle and exponential tilting
A closed subspace of a compact space is compact, and a finite union of compact subspaces is compact
Finite-alphabet Sanov bounds on the support simplex
Finite relative entropy is continuous on a simplex with positive reference law
Nonnegativity and equality for finite classical relative entropy
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A finite nonempty alphabet, a full-support reference probability , a continuous energy-density map , the finite product laws, and .
Finite-alphabet mean-field probability ensembles: is the probability simplex, is the empirical type under , has the finite full-support convention in the Statement, the canonical word law is the normalized weight , and the shell event is .
Finite-alphabet Sanov bounds on the support simplex: if and is its support simplex, the empirical type laws under satisfy the open-set lower and closed-set upper large-deviation bounds at speed with rate ; because has full support, .
Compact-space Laplace principle and exponential tilting: for a speed- LDP with rate on a compact metric space and continuous , , and the normalized exponential tilt has rate .
Finite relative entropy is continuous on a simplex with positive reference law: for a finite alphabet and a full-support reference , is finite and continuous on the whole simplex, including its boundary.
Nonnegativity and equality for finite classical relative entropy: for probability vectors on a finite set, , with equality exactly when .
Heine-Borel in : with the Euclidean metric a subset of is compact if and only if it is closed and bounded, and the proof by bisection uses no choice principle; the same holds on the real line: a closed and bounded subset of Euclidean , for , is compact.
A closed subspace of a compact space is compact, and a finite union of compact subspaces is compact: a closed subset of a compact topological space is compact.
A continuous image of a compact space is compact; a continuous real-valued map on a nonempty compact space attains a maximum and a minimum; and a continuous bijection from a compact space to a Hausdorff space is a homeomorphism: a continuous image of a compact space is compact, and a continuous real-valued function on a nonempty compact space attains its minimum and maximum.
Proof
Enumerate , with , and identify with Euclidean . Write and ; the declared topology on the simplex is the topology from . The simplex is closed because it is the intersection of the closed coordinate constraints and the closed affine constraint ; these are closed since coordinate maps and their finite sum are continuous. It is bounded because . By [F6] it is compact in the Euclidean topology. For every , because , and because . These inequalities show that the Euclidean and metrics have the same open sets, so the simplex is compact in its declared topology. By continuity of and , each fiber and each sublevel set is closed in the simplex and hence compact by [F7]. The continuous-image and extreme-value conclusions in [F8] therefore apply to these sets. In particular, [F4] makes continuous on the compact simplex, so it attains a finite minimum . The rate is nonnegative by [F5]. The empirical macrostate law under has rate by [F2]. For every Borel , the canonical macrostate probability is exactly where is the base law of ; this follows by summing the word weights in [F1] over the fiber . Thus it is the tilt in [F3] with , and its rate is . Its zero set is . Let be any open neighborhood of and put . If , the probability of the complement is zero. Otherwise is a nonempty closed subset of the compact simplex, hence compact by [F7]. The continuous rate is positive at every point of because its zero set is ; by [F8] it attains a strictly positive minimum on , and the LDP upper bound makes the canonical macrostate probability of that complement exponentially small.
Let and put . If , then , so and . For any in the energy range, minimizing over gives , equivalently . Thus maximizes the stated entropy-minus-energy expression.
The fiber is nonempty and closed, hence compact by step 1.1 and [F7], because is in the range of continuous . By [F4] and [F8], attains its finite minimum on , so is nonempty. For fixed , put ; it is open and contains . By [F2], For each matching radius in the Statement the two infima agree, so the inner limit exists and equals their negative common value. The lower bound is finite because contains a finite-rate point of ; hence the conditioning event has positive probability for all sufficiently large .
Write for any ; since , . Fix and let . By [F4], this set is closed and hence compact by [F7]; it is disjoint from by the definition of . Thus its compact image does not contain by [F8]. If it is nonempty, the continuous function on that compact image attains a positive minimum by [F8]; continuity follows from . Therefore the image is separated from ; if it is empty the conclusion is immediate. For every sufficiently small , the closed shell misses , so . Together with , this proves as , in particular along the matching sequence . Step 2.1 now gives the iterated shell limit .
Let be an open neighborhood of and put , which is closed and hence compact by step 1.1 and [F7]. If , then is compact by [F8] and does not contain ; if is nonempty, the continuous function attains a positive minimum there by [F8], using . Thus sufficiently small shells miss ; this is also immediate when . Otherwise, is a nonempty closed subset of the compact simplex and is compact by [F7]. Continuity of and [F8] give , since contains no constrained minimizer. Choose and set ; it is closed and hence compact by [F4] and [F7], and it is disjoint from . Therefore is compact by [F8] and does not contain . If empty it is already separated from ; otherwise, the continuous distance function attains a positive minimum there by [F8], so is separated from . Hence for all sufficiently small , . For every sufficiently small matching radius , we also have . The LDP upper bound [F2] on the closed set bounds the numerator's logarithmic limsup exponent by . By step 2.1 the denominator's logarithmic limit exponent is , so subtracting gives a conditional logarithmic limsup at most . Thus for every sufficiently large the conditional probability tends to zero exponentially as , which gives the asserted iterated concentration limit.
Conversely, let maximize and let . For any , put . Then , so . This proves both the equality of energy sets and the macrostate criterion. Rearranging gives exactly ; hence the criterion is the stated upper-supporting-line condition, with no formal inverse-transform assumption.
Remarks
For a probability law on a measurable space and a bounded measurable , write for the normalized exponential tilt . Let with its discrete -algebra, and let denote Borel probability measures on . Since is continuous on compact , the indicated tilts are finite and positive. The square records that tilting word probabilities by a weight depending only on the empirical macrostate commutes with pushing the law forward by :
For an arbitrary probability law on the finite space and every Borel , the two routes assign the same mass: The equality follows by grouping the finite word sums into the fibers of . In particular, setting gives the word-law identity used in step 1.1. The diagram summarizes the identity and is not used as a proof.
Curie–Weiss magnetization bifurcation at the mean-field critical point
Statement
This is a dimensionless mathematical model: , , , and are dimensionless, so is dimensionless. The labels “coupling” and “inverse-temperature parameter” are conventional names here and do not assign physical units.
Let with uniform reference law . For define its magnetization and the mean-field energy density , where . For inverse-temperature parameter , the canonical macrostate variational objective from the finite-alphabet model is where . This objective has the unique global minimizer when . When , its global minimizers are exactly , where is the unique positive solution of
Statement references
Finite-alphabet mean-field probability ensembles
Finite-alphabet mean-field ensembles and upper supporting lines
Finite relative entropy is continuous on a simplex with positive reference law
The natural logarithm as the inverse of the exponential function
Order, continuity, range, and the product, quotient, and reciprocal laws for the natural logarithm
The natural logarithm has derivative 1/x and equals the integral from 1 to x of 1/t
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The spin alphabet, uniform reference law, coupling , and parameter in the Statement.
Finite-alphabet mean-field probability ensembles: for a full-support finite reference law, a continuous , and , the canonical variational objective at is ; is the finite relative-entropy sum with zero-mass terms omitted.
Finite-alphabet mean-field ensembles and upper supporting lines: canonical equilibrium macrostates are exactly the global minimizers of .
The natural logarithm as the inverse of the exponential function and Order, continuity, range, and the product, quotient, and reciprocal laws for the natural logarithm: is the inverse of on positive reals, is continuous and strictly increasing, is onto , and satisfies .
The chain rule, in one line from Carathéodory: if is differentiable at and is differentiable at , then is differentiable at with : differentiable real functions compose with derivative under the stated domain and limit-point hypotheses.
The mean value theorem, as the case of Cauchy's: for continuous on with and differentiable on there is with : a function continuous on a closed interval and differentiable on its interior has an interior derivative equal to its endpoint secant slope.
Intermediate value theorem, by bisection with a canonical left-half rule: a continuous function on takes every value between and : a continuous real function on a closed interval takes every value between its endpoint values.
Finite relative entropy is continuous on a simplex with positive reference law: for a finite alphabet and full-support reference law, is finite and continuous on the entire simplex, including its boundary; its proof establishes .
Proof
Write and . Substituting into [F1] with gives with the zero-mass endpoint term omitted. Since depends continuously on and [F8] makes continuous on the whole simplex, adding shows that is continuous on ; [F8] supplies the boundary limit behind the convention . The formula is even in .
For define . By [F3]–[F5] and direct differentiation, For put and define by . Then , , and for . The mean value theorem [F6] applies to on because is continuous there and differentiable on ; it gives , hence .
The same theorem [F6] applied to on gives for some ; as , and , so . As , , and the increasing onto logarithm [F3] gives , hence . Thus is continuous, strictly increasing from limiting value to on .
If , then for , by step 2.1. The mean value theorem [F6] on each subinterval of makes strictly increasing there; continuity includes the endpoint . Evenness then shows for every , so is the unique global minimizer.
If , the limits in step 2.1 give with , . Continuity of on and the intermediate value theorem [F7] give an with ; strict increase of makes it unique on . The derivative formula in step 1.2 is negative for and positive for . By [F6], strictly decreases on and strictly increases on , including the endpoint by continuity. Evenness proves that the only global minimizers on are ; in particular the stationary point is not a minimizer.
The equation is . If , then by [F3], so the stated formula for gives . Hence . Conversely, any solving this fixed-point equation yields by rearrangement of the stated formula; applying and [F3] gives . Strict increase of therefore proves uniqueness of the positive fixed point. By [F2], the global minimizers just classified are exactly the canonical equilibrium magnetizations.
5 · Examples, experiments and counterexamples
None yet.