Two-particle antisymmetrization
ID: two-particle-antisymmetrization
The particle exchange operator swaps the complete particle slots, including spin. Its antisymmetric projector is . For orthonormal one-particle states , the normalized multiparticle quantum state isBut attempting the same construction with gives the zero vector:The zero vector cannot be normalized to a quantum state. This is exclusion as cancellation of probability amplitudes, rather than a repulsive force. More generally, for normalized the squared norm of the numerator divided by is ; the expression has unit norm only when are orthogonal. An overall quantum phase difference between describes the same one-particle state and also gives zero. Pauli explicitly connects exclusion with a vanishing antisymmetric wavefunction.[ref]
Exclusion principle and quantum mechanics by Wolfgang Pauli. p. 31, antisymmetric functions with repeated states
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