Nonadditivity in Quantum Field Theory: Replica Energies, Scaling Filters, and the Renormalization Group

Abstract

Extensive systems have a simple thermodynamic signature: the dimensionless canonical free energy scales homogeneously with the size of the system. We show that the failure of this scaling, measured by the replica energy ${\cal E}$, provides a useful bridge between statistical mechanics and quantum field theory. The associated differential operator $(1-\frac1d L\partial_L)$ removes the leading bulk contribution to $\mathcal{F}=βF_{\rm can}=-\log Z$ and isolates the part that is sensitive to boundaries, topology, defects, long-range forces, or other sources of nonadditivity. In quantum field theory this thermodynamic idea has two closely related uses. For ordinary finite-volume or spherical partition functions, suitable higher-order versions of the same filter remove local counterterms and extract universal fixed-point data such as the central charge, the sphere free energy $F$, and the Euler anomaly coefficient $a$. For replica geometries with entangling defects, the same filtering principle gives the renormalized defect free energy. In $2+1$ dimensions, its $n\to1$ limit gives the entropic $F$-function, with the sign fixed below by the standard free-energy convention. We use this perspective to distinguish ordinary finite-size corrections, topology-dependent constants in gapped phases, subextensive fracton degeneracies, and genuinely nonextensive systems with long-range interactions such as self-gravitating thermal matter. Replica energy therefore offers a common thermodynamic language for additivity, defect free energies, and renormalization-group irreversibility.