Entropy plays a key role in statistical physics of complex systems, which in general exhibit diverse aspects of emergence on different scales. However, it still remains not fully resolved how entropy varies with the coarse-graining level and the description scale. In this paper, we consider a Yule-type growth model, where each element is characterized by its size being either continuous or discrete. Entropy is then defined directly from the probability distribution of the states of all elements as well as from the size distribution of the system. Probing in detail their relations and time evolutions, we find that heterogeneity in addition to correlations between elements could induce loss of information during the coarse-graining procedure. It is also revealed that the expansion of the size space domain depends on the description level, leading to a difference between the continuous description and the discrete one.
Download