2005/11/01 by Yasser Omar, Y. Omar
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Beam splitter #Fermion #Identical particles #Pauli exclusion principle #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics #Signature (topology) #Symmetrization #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/00107510500361274
published as Contemporary Physics, Vol. 46, 437-448 (2005) · To appear in Contemp. Phys
arxiv created 2005/11/01 · openalex publication_date 2005/11/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In this article, we discuss the identity and indistinguishability of quantum systems and the consequent need to introduce an extra postulate in Quantum Mechanics to correctly describe situations involving indistinguishable particles. This is, for electrons, the Pauli Exclusion Principle, or in general, the Symmetrization Postulate. Then, we introduce fermions and bosons and the distributions respectively describing their statistical behaviour in indistinguishable situations. Following that, we discuss the spin-statistics connection, as well as alternative statistics and experimental evidence for all these results, including the use of bunching and antibunching of particles emerging from a beam splitter as a signature for some bosonic or fermionic states.