Baker, David John and Halvorson, Hans and Swanson, Noel (2013) The Conventionality of Parastatistics. In: UNSPECIFIED.

Preview

PDF Conventionality_of_Parastatistics_Final_Revision.pdf Download (454kB)

Abstract

Nature seems to be such that we can describe it accurately with quantum theories of bosons and fermions alone, without resort to parastatistics. This has been seen as a deep mystery: paraparticles make perfect physical sense, so why don't we see them in nature? We consider one potential answer: every paraparticle theory is physically equivalent to some theory of bosons or fermions, making the absence of paraparticles in our theories a matter of convention rather than a mysterious empirical discovery. We argue that this equivalence thesis holds in all physically admissible quantum field theories falling under the domain of the rigorous Doplicher-Haag-Roberts approach to superselection rules. Inadmissible parastatistical theories are ruled out by a locality-inspired principle we call Charge Recombination.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Baker, David John djbaker@umich.edu Halvorson, Hans hhalvors@princeton.edu Swanson, Noel nwswanso@princeton.edu
Keywords:	quantum field theory, symmetry, conventionalism, particle physics
Subjects:	General Issues > Conventionalism Specific Sciences > Physics > Fields and Particles Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Depositing User:	Hans Halvorson
Date Deposited:	29 May 2014 14:14
Last Modified:	29 May 2014 14:14
Item ID:	10697
Subjects:	General Issues > Conventionalism Specific Sciences > Physics > Fields and Particles Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Date:	February 2013
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/10697

Available Versions of this Item

• The Conventionality of Parastatistics. (deposited 11 Feb 2013 22:49)
  • The Conventionality of Parastatistics. (deposited 29 May 2014 14:14) [Currently Displayed]

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item