Re: Pauli Exclusion

[John Denker <jsd@AV8N.COM>]

David Bowman wrote:
> The most general formulation is the requirement (based on the Spin-
> Statistics Theorem's need for consistency) that fermion fields be
> quantized using anticommutator bracket relations rather than using
> commutator bracket relations as is done for boson fields.  The
> antisymmetry of fermion states under particle exchange comes from the
> anticommutivity of the single fermion creation and destruction
> operators referring to different fermion modes.

That's right.

As far as I can tell that's exactly right, and anything else
I can think of would be a step backward in generality and/or
reliability.

However, that version probably wouldn't be particularly
helpful to an intro-level student, which is where this
discussion began.

There are more-accessible ways of approaching the topic,
with considerable loss of generality but not too much loss
in reliability.  My favorite is Feynman volume III section
3-4 and continuing into chapter 4.

Also, for those who may be interested, I wrote up some notes
on the topic:
  http://www.av8n.com/physics/exchange.htm

Executive summary:
 *) Tricky distinction:  particles that are intrinsically
  identical may oftentimes be distinguishable nevertheless.

 *) Exchange is a physical (not mathematical) process.  It
   might occur to greater or lesser degree.

 *) There's no point in changing the sign of the overall
  wavefunction.

 *) There's no point in merely shuffling dummy indices.

 ** et cetera.