The Conventionality of Parastatistics
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The Conventionality of Parastatistics. / Baker, David John; Halvorson, Hans; Swanson, Noel.
I: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Bind 66, Nr. 4, 2015, s. 929-976.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The Conventionality of Parastatistics
AU - Baker, David John
AU - Halvorson, Hans
AU - Swanson, Noel
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
U2 - 10.1093/bjps/axu018
DO - 10.1093/bjps/axu018
M3 - Journal article
VL - 66
SP - 929
EP - 976
JO - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
JF - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
SN - 0007-0882
IS - 4
ER -
ID: 289118490