Related papers: How Classical Particles Emerge From the Quantum Wo…
According to classical physics particles are basic building blocks of the world. Classical particles are distinguishable objects, individuated by physical characteristics. By contrast, in quantum mechanics the standard view is that…
A remarkable feature of quantum theory is that particles with identical intrinsic properties must be treated as indistinguishable if the theory is to give valid predictions. In the quantum formalism, indistinguishability is expressed via…
We study the problem of particle indistinguishability for the three cases known in nature: identical classical particles, identical bosons and identical fermions. By exploiting the fact that different types of particles are associated with…
If, in a system of identical particles, the one particle state is defined by the partial trace to one of the component spaces of the total Hilbert space, then all one particle states are identical. The particles are indistinguishable. This…
The Gibbs paradox has frequently been interpreted as a sign that particles of the same kind are fundamentally indistinguishable; and that quantum mechanics, with its identical fermions and bosons, is indispensable for making sense of this.…
The mathematical rules used to handle systems of identical quantum particles bring into question whether the elementary constituents of matter, such as electrons, have the fundamental characteristics of persistence and reidentifiability…
We consider the possibility that all particles in the world are fundamentally identical, i.e., belong to the same species. Different masses, charges, spins, flavors, or colors then merely correspond to different quantum states of the same…
We discuss our understanding of the equivalence principle in both classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. We show that not only does the equivalence principle hold for the trajectories of quantum particles in a background gravitational…
The suggestion that particles of the same kind may be indistinguishable in a fundamental sense, even so that challenges to traditional notions of individuality and identity may arise, has first come up in the context of classical…
Quantum particles and classical particles are described in a common setting of classical statistical physics. The property of a particle being "classical" or "quantum" ceases to be a basic conceptual difference. The dynamics differs,…
We examine a recent argument that ``identical'' quantum particles with an anti-symmetric state (fermions) are weakly discernible objects, just like irreflexively related ordinary objects in situations with perfect symmetry (Black's spheres,…
Identical classical particles are distinguishable. This distinguishability affects the number of ways W a macrostate can be realized on the micro-level, and from the relation S = k ln W leads to a non-extensive expression for the entropy.…
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…
Quantum mechanical particles in a confining potential interfere with each other while undergoing thermodynamic processes far from thermal equilibrium. By evaluating the corresponding transition probabilities between many-particle…
Elementary particles in quantum mechanics (QM) are indistinguishable when sharing the same intrinsic properties and the same quantum state. So, we can consider quantum particles as non-individuals, although non-individuality is usually…
We examine the logical structure of the emergence of classical stochasticity for a quantum system governed by a Pauli-type master equation. It is well-known that while such equations describe the evolution of probabilities, they do not…
Indistinguishability of particles is normally considered to be an inherently quantum property which cannot be possessed by a classical theory. However, Saunders has argued that this is incorrect, and that classically indistinguishable…
The theory of point-particles in classical electrodynamics has a well-known problem of infinite self-energy, and the same is true of quantum electrodynamics. Instead of concluding that there is no such thing as a true point-particle, it is…
Classical and quantum physics represent two distinct theories; however, quantum physics is regarded as the more fundamental of the two. It is posited that classical mechanics should arise from quantum mechanics under certain limiting…
It is shown that quantum systems of identical particles can be treated as if they were different when they are in well differentiated states. This simplifying assumption allows the consideration of quantum systems isolated from the rest of…