There is a state-assumption issue. For a number-conserving Gaussian quantum state with no anomalous contractions, put , and the one-body density matrix . Wick's theorem pairs each creation operator with an annihilation operator. The direct pairing gives ; the exchanged pairing gives , with for bosons and for fermions. Hence
normal ordering removes the equal-position delta-function self-counting term. Fermionic occupation-number product states are Slater determinants and obey this Wick theorem. Independent thermal bosonic modes also obey it, with understood as mean occupations.
A bosonic Fock product state does not generally obey the asserted identity. The bosonic number-state corrections to Gaussian density correlations follow from and give
For one occupied mode this is , whereas the uncorrected Gaussian expression gives . This counterexample disproves the asserted identity for arbitrary bosonic number-product states. The formulas below give both the Gaussian result, with its additional state assumption, and the exact bosonic number-state alternative. The ensemble distinction is also explicit in a later primary treatment of ideal-gas correlations.[ref]