Perspective on Physical Interpretations of Rényi Entropy in Statistical Mechanics

Rényi entropy is a one-parameter generalization of Shannon entropy, which has been used in various fields of physics. Despite its wide applicability, the physical interpretations of the Rényi entropy are not widely known. In this paper, we discuss some basic properties of the Rényi entropy relevant to physics, in particular statistical mechanics, and its physical interpretations using free energy, replicas, work, and large deviation.