Nuclear Physics Seminars

The connection between spin and statistics is usually proved by using the full machinery of relativistic quantum field theory, providing little insight into what physics actually underlies it or whether there can be exceptional cases. I will show, using elementary methods of ordinary nonrelativistic quantum mechanics that identical zero-spin particles must obey symmetric statistics. The key assumption is that no dynamical variable in the theory distinguishes among identical spin-zero particles. Whether this approach can be extended to identical particles with nonvanishing spin is currently uncertain.