Nonextensive effects on the relativistic nuclear equation of state

Abstract

As widely known, the Walecka many-body field theory plays an important role in nuclear physics. This paper investigates such a theory in the context of quantum nonextensive statistical mechanics, characterized by a dimensionless parameter $q$. To this end, we consider nuclear matter described statistically by a power-law distribution which generalizes the standard Fermi-Dirac distribution ($q=1$). We show that the scalar and vector meson fields become more intense because of the nonextensive effects ($q\ensuremath{\ne}1$). From a numerical treatment, we also show that as the nonextensive parameter $q$ increases, the nucleon effective mass diminishes and the equation of state becomes stiffer. Finally, the usual Maxwell construction seems not to be necessary for isotherms with temperatures in the range $14<{k}_{B}T<20$ MeV.