7 On Generalized Distributions and Pathways

The scalar version of the pathway model of Mathai (2005) is shown to be associated with a large number of probability models used in physics. Different families of densities are listed here, which are all connected through the pathway parameter α, generating a distributional pathway. The idea is to switch from one functional form to another through this parameter and it is shown that one can proceed from the generalized type-1 beta family to generalized type-2 beta family to generalized gamma family. It is also shown that the pathway model is available by maximizing a generalized measure of entropy, leading to an entropic pathway, covering the particularly interesting cases of Tsallis statistics (Tsallis, 1988) and superstatistics (Beck and Cohen, 2003).