For a single-particle state of energy , put . The equilibrium mean occupancies are
The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution is the dilute classical limit. The Fermi-Dirac distribution applies to identical fermions with at most one particle in each complete single-particle state by the Pauli exclusion principle. The Bose-Einstein distribution applies to identical bosons with no such upper occupation bound. The chemical potential fixes total particle number; these are mean state occupancies, not three separately normalized single-particle probability densities. For a number-conserving ideal Bose gas, cannot exceed the lowest single-particle energy.
Take to be a wavevector and count periodic-box states with cell volume in momentum space, parameterized by . Write for internal degeneracy. The number of states in a spherical shell is . Since ,
Thus the one-particle canonical partition function is
Here , for one nondegenerate branch, and for the spin-half case below. The integral uses . For classical indistinguishable particles, , giving
The factor three in the energy arises from the linear dispersion relation and three-dimensional state counting; the usual nonrelativistic quadratic-dispersion value does not apply.
For spin-half fermions at , all states up to the Fermi energy are occupied. With ,
Integrating the occupied energy states gives
These are the corresponding ultrarelativistic ideal Fermi gas formulae with general slope . The nonzero ground-state internal energy and degeneracy pressure reflect the Pauli exclusion principle: particles cannot all occupy the lowest-momentum state. Formally extrapolating the classical equations gives , but Maxwell–Boltzmann statistics is not valid at fixed positive as .
At large , the number equation gives , so expanding the Fermi-Dirac distribution recovers the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. A convenient crossover scale is the Fermi temperature,
For , both gases have . At fixed , the Fermi curve begins at , has zero initial slope, lies above the classical line, and approaches it at high temperature. For example its low-temperature expansion is . The plot evaluates the finite-temperature occupation integrals at fixed number density.
Figure 1.
Pressure of classical and spin-half Fermi gases with linear dispersion
. Original fixed-density calculation. The Fermi curve is obtained by solving the number equation for the chemical potential at each temperature; its positive zero-temperature pressure and the shared classical limit are marked. Details.
If the source's symbol is interpreted literally as momentum rather than a wavevector, the state-space cell is . In that convention replace in the wavevector-based coefficients and energy scales above by . The dimensionless thermodynamics and the relation are unchanged.
Pati-Salam model Created 2026-10-20 Updated 2026-10-25
A quark-lepton unification framework with conventional minimal gauge group . leptons supply a fourth color charge, and a right-handed neutrino completes each family. fermion masses additionally depend on symmetry breaking and Yukawa couplings.
Pauli blocking 2026-10-20
Suppression of a transition when its required final fermion state is already occupied. In a low-temperature Fermi gas, an otherwise allowed collision must place outgoing particles in empty states; occupation restricts its available phase space. This does not mean that fermions cease interacting.
Pauli principle 2026-10-20
The complete wavefunction of identical fermions changes sign on exchange of two particles, including their spatial and internal coordinates. The Pauli exclusion principle follows because an antisymmetrized product with two identical complete spin orbitals is zero. Antisymmetry concerns the total state; a spin-antisymmetric singlet state can have a symmetric spatial factor.
For a pure resonant Z boson with negligible fermion masses, and . Lepton universality makes this for charged leptons. A nonzero value diagnoses parity violation within this single-resonance approximation; a general angular forward-backward asymmetry need not be parity odd.
An electron annihilation operator restricted to the no-double-occupancy sector of the t-J model. It removes a spin- electron only when the opposite-spin site occupation vanishes. The corresponding creation operator cannot create a doubly occupied site. These projected operators do not obey the unrestricted canonical on-site fermion algebra on all states.
Define the proper electromagnetic vertex with the electric charge removed, and define without the propagator's overall factor . The displayed off-shell identity follows by localizing the vector symmetry in a time-ordered correlation function, including the contact terms at the charged-field insertions, and amputating. Its on-shell form gives the Ward identity for physical photon amplitudes. At zero photon momentum it identifies the vertex with the momentum derivative of the inverse fermion propagator.
Quantum field Created 2026-10-13 Updated 2026-10-18
A quantum field is an operator-valued distribution on spacetime: smearing against a smooth test function gives an operator, whereas pointwise products can require renormalization. For example, a free complex scalar field contains particle annihilation operators and antiparticle creation operators. Its microcausality condition makes field commutators vanish at spacelike separation. For fermions, the corresponding locality condition uses anticommutators. This combines quantum operators with the spacetime locality of a quantum field theory.
Quantum Monte Carlo Created 2026-10-20 Updated 2026-10-31
Stochastic methods for quantum many-particle expectation values or ground-state projection. Variational and diffusion approaches can include correlations beyond a single Slater determinant; fermion signs or nodal constraints and finite-system extrapolation require explicit control.
Quantum XX chain 2026-10-20
The spin-one-half quantum XX chain has equal nearest-neighbour transverse exchange. Its continuous spin rotation symmetry conserves total longitudinal magnetization. The Jordan–Wigner transformation maps it to number-conserving free fermions. This quantum chain is distinct from the classical XY model.
A particularly economical example is the baryon decuplet. Restrict to fully symmetric three-quark flavor states. The nonnegative occupation numbers satisfy , giving possibilities by stars and bars. Their additive labels are
These formulas follow directly from the constituent table. With fixed , there are possible values of , so the weight diagram has rows of four, three, two and one states. Its outer triangle is therefore a consequence of the constituent construction, rather than an arbitrary drawing convention.
Figure 1.
Three light-flavor weights generate the triangular baryon decuplet
. Original exact constituent calculation using . The left panel shows the fundamental flavor triplet. The right panel adds three such weights in fully symmetric flavor states; every point is labelled by its constituent content and electric charge. No measured masses or event counts are plotted. Details.
The bottom corner has , hence , and : the Omega baryon position. The top-right corner has and , corresponding to the doubly charged Delta baryon. Every point satisfies the Gell-Mann--Nishijima formula .
The flavor construction is only part of the state. The Pauli constraint on three-quark flavour multiplets also involves spin angular momentum, the spatial wavefunction and color charge. In particular, three identical fermions cannot be assigned a completely symmetric total state merely because the flavor diagram is symmetric. Nor does the same flavor diagram determine the hadron masses: an approximate flavor symmetry can organize a spectrum without making all its members degenerate.
A closed string sector with left-moving Ramond sector excitations and right-moving Neveu–Schwarz sector excitations. Its spacetime states are fermions. The closed-string level matching condition is . After the supersymmetric GSO projection, the lowest states have and give the other massless gravitino and dilatino of type II string theory.
In the ideal-gas high-temperature limit, the Standard Model has 28 boson states: 16 gluon states, eight electroweak gauge boson states and four Higgs field states. Its 90 fermion states are 72 quark states, 12 charged lepton states and six neutrino states. Counting a relativistic fermion state with weight gives the displayed effective number of relativistic entropy degrees of freedom. The effective number of relativistic energy degrees of freedom has the same value when all species share a temperature. Mass thresholds and interactions change the ideal-gas count.
Let the left and right fermions transform in , where is the two-dimensional irreducible representation of the symmetric group and is the sign representation. Let the scalar field be a trivial representation. In matching orthonormal bases, invariance of says that commutes with . The Schur lemma forces each diagonal irreducible block to be scalar and both mixed blocks to vanish, giving the displayed form. Thus after a vacuum expectation value , the physical fermion mass matrix has singular values : unbroken enforces a degenerate doublet. In a common nonorthonormal basis with invariant Gram matrix , the doublet coefficient is ; canonical normalization recovers .
Shortened massive supermultiplet Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-07
For supersymmetries and saturated two-by-two central-charge blocks, complex oscillators act trivially. A spin- Clifford vacuum therefore gives states and preserves of the real supercharges. With and a scalar vacuum, the shortened multiplet has two boson states and two fermion states, before any CPT completion of a supermultiplet.
For a single one-particle state with , the empty and singly occupied contributions dominate. A fermion state gives , a boson state gives , and Maxwell–Boltzmann statistics give . Thus all have the same leading dilute response, . This approximation does not impose an exclusion principle on classical particles.
Single-particle orbital 2026-10-25
A single-particle wavefunction used as a mode of a many-particle description. An orbital can include spatial and spin variables; a spatial orbital specifies the spatial part. Orthonormal orbitals define creation and annihilation operators. Occupation of one normalized orbital by every boson gives a Hartree product state, while antisymmetrized occupation by fermions gives a Slater determinant.
Slater determinant 2026-10-14
A Slater determinant extends two-particle antisymmetrization to fermions. Here contains position and spin or other internal variables. Distinct orthonormal one-particle states give the normalized wavefunction displayed in the title. Repeating a one-particle state repeats a column of the determinant, so the wavefunction vanishes. Exchanging particle slots exchanges rows and reverses its sign. A general fermionic quantum state can be a quantum superposition of Slater determinants; it need not be one Slater determinant.
A tight binding chain of one species of fermions with nearest-neighbour hopping and density interaction. At half filling and , minimizing the interaction requires alternating occupied and empty sites. An even periodic chain has two such configurations at ; finite hopping admixes defects through virtual hopping. A finite ring can select superpositions rather than one ordered product state. Two uncoupled copies have four limiting ordered choices when each is half filled, without a general claim of exact finite-hopping fourfold state degeneracy.
For , angular momentum addition gives one copy of . The identity gives the four eigenvalues in the title, with state degeneracy . These exhaust the spin space. If the particles are identical fermions, an appropriate spatial exchange parity accommodates each sector; only a specified spatial restriction can remove sectors.