Departure from Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics makes the hydrogen-atom specific heat a computable quantity

Abstract

The specific heat of the (nonionized) hydrogen atom in free space cannot be calculated within Boltzmann-Gibbs statistical mechanics essentially because its partition function diverges. We show that a recently introduced generalized formalism can overcome this difficulty for q1 (the index q characterizes the statistics; Boltzmann-Gibbs corresponds to q=1).