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Quantum Mechanics of Identical Particles

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Abstract

In general, superconductivity occurs in a system of identical particles; specifically, the conduction electrons in metals. Being indistinguishable from each other, swapping any two electrons leaves the system unchanged. This feature, which is associated with invariance under permutations, has a profound implication for every system composed of identical particles. We study a crucial connection between the spin of a particle and permutation symmetry of many-particle wave functions. We also develop a special technique called second quantization that enables us to describe such a system concisely and conveniently. The results are summarized generally in Sect. 3.7 and specifically for ideal gases in (3.61)–(3.65).

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Kita, T. (2015). Quantum Mechanics of Identical Particles. In: Statistical Mechanics of Superconductivity. Graduate Texts in Physics. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55405-9_3

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