A realist view on the treatment of identical particles

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.