A realist view on the treatment of identical particles

TL;DR

This paper explores the conceptual foundations of identical particles in quantum mechanics from a realist perspective, clarifying issues like symmetrization, spin-statistics, and statistical distributions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the treatment of identical particles within a realist interpretation, emphasizing wave function roles and deriving Fermi and Bose distributions.

Findings

Clarifies the role of wave function parameters and labels.

Explains the origin of symmetrization and antisymmetrization.

Derives Fermi and Bose distributions from first principles.

Abstract

Some basic concepts concerning systems of identical particles are discussed in the framework of a realist interpretation, where the wave function is the quantum object and |psi(r)|^2 d^3r is the probability that the wave function causes an effect about the point r. The topics discussed include the role of Hilbert-space labels, wave-function variables and wave-function parameters, the distinction between permutation and renaming, the reason for symmetrizing the wave function, the reason for antisymmetric wave functions, the spin-statistics theorem, the correction term -k lnN! in the entropy, the Boltzmann limit of the Fermi and Bose cases, and the derivation of the Fermi and Bose distributions.