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arXiv:2509.17896 · Quantum

Bosonic content of three-fermion highest-spin states

Jerzy Ciosłowski, Krzysztof Strasburger, D. K. Sunko

Published May 29, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

A rigorous characterization of the information content of any highest-spin three-fermion wave function is presented. It is based upon a formal decomposition of the wave function into a finite set of fixed invariants, called shapes, whose sole purpose is to satisfy the Pauli principle, and a variable part, constituting the bosonic excitations of these invariants, that provides its physical content. As an example, this decomposition is applied to a benchmark-quality approximate wave function of the lowest-energy quartet electronic state of the lithium atom. This wave function, which comprises hundreds of basis functions, is reduced to eleven shape blocks, only five of which are numerically significant. Such a compact characterization is a generic example of the appearance of superselection rules in configuration space, and provides a qualitative aid in the search for robust few-particle entangled states.

DOI
10.22331/q-2026-05-29-2121

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A rigorous characterization of the information content of any highest-spin three-fermion wave function is presented. It is based upon a formal decomposition of the wave function into a finite set of fixed invariants, called shapes, whose sole purpose is to satisfy the Pauli principle, and a variable part, constituting the bosonic excitations of these invariants, that provides its physical content. As an example, this decomposition is applied to a benchmark-quality approximate wave function of the lowest-energy quartet electronic state of the lithium atom. This wave function, which comprises hundreds of basis functions, is reduced to eleven shape blocks, only five of which are numerically significant. Such a compact characterization is a generic example of the appearance of superselection rules in configuration space, and provides a qualitative aid in the search for robust few-particle entangled states.
Many-body Hilbert space has the algebraic structure of a finitely generated free module. All N-body wave functions in d dimensions can be generated by a finite number of N!d − 1 of generators called shapes, with symmetric-function coefficients. Physically the shapes are vacuum states, while the symmetric coefficients are bosonic excitations of these vacua. It is shown here that logical entropy can be used to distinguish fermion shapes by information content, although they are pure states whose usual quantum entropies are zero. The construction is based on the known algebraic structure of fermion shapes. It is presented for the case of N fermions in three dimensions. The background of this result is presented as an introductory review.
Many-body Hilbert space is a functional vector space with the natural structure of an algebra, in which vector multiplication is ordinary multiplication of wave functions. This algebra is finite-dimensional, with exactly [Formula: see text] generators for N identical particles, bosons or fermions, in d dimensions. The generators are called shapes. Each shape is a possible many-body vacuum. Shapes are natural generalizations of the ground-state Slater determinant to more than one dimension. Physical states, including the ground state, are superpositions of shapes with symmetric-function coefficients, for both bosons and fermions. These symmetric functions may be interpreted as bosonic excitations of the shapes. The algebraic structure of Hilbert space described here provides qualitative insights into long-standing issues of many-body physics, including the fermion sign problem and the microscopic origin of bands in the spectra of finite systems.
The basic question is addressed of how the space dimension ddd is encoded in the Hilbert space of NNN identical fermions. There appears a finite number $N{!}^{d\ensuremath{-}1}$ of many-body wave functions, called shapes, which cannot be generated by trivial combinatorial extension of the one-dimensional ones. A general algorithm is given to list them all in terms of standard Slater determinants. Conversely, excitations which can be induced from the one-dimensional case are bosonized into a system of distinguishable bosons, called Euler bosons, much like the electromagnetic field is quantized in terms of photons distinguishable by their wave numbers. Their wave functions are given explicitly in terms of elementary symmetric functions, reflecting the fact that the fermion sign problem is trivial in one dimension. The shapes act as vacua for the Euler bosons. They are the natural generalization of the single-Slater-determinant form for the ground state to more than one dimension. In terms of algebraic invariant theory, the shapes are antisymmetric invariants which finitely generate the NNN-fermion Hilbert space as a graded algebra over the ring of symmetric polynomials. Analogous results hold for identical bosons.
The degrees of freedom studied so far have been either real or complex variables. These variables commute under multiplication, in the sense that two numbers a, b satisfy ab = ba ; commuting variables are generically called bosonic variables, or bosonic degrees of freedom. Typical of the bosonic case are the degrees of freedom for a collection of quantum mechanical particles. Interactions of fundamental particles are generally mediated by bosonic fields such as the Maxwell electromagnetic field, whereas mass is usually carried by particles that are fermions, the most familiar being the electron. Two key features distinguish fermions from bosons: Fermions obey the Pauli exclusion principle, which states that no two fermions can occupy the same quantum state. This is the reason the concept of intensity does not apply to a fermion. A high intensity electric field is a reflection of the presence of a large number of photons, which are bosons, in the same quantum state; for photons, any number of photons can be in the same quantum state. In contrast, an electron is either in a quantum state or it is not; in particular, ignoring spin, an electron exists at a point or there is no electron there. The state function of a multi-bosonic system is totally symmetric in that the exchange of any two bosonic degrees of freedom yields the same state function. In contrast, a multi-fermion system is totally anti-symmetric: the exchange of any two fermion degrees of freedom gives the same state – but with a negative sign .
We analyze a general bipartite-like representation of arbitrary pure states of N indistinguishable partcles, valid for both bosons and fermions, based on MMM- and $(N\ensuremath{-}M)$-particle states. It leads to exact $(M,N\ensuremath{-}M)$ Schmidt-like expansions of the state for any M<NM<NM<N and is directly related to the isospectral reduced MMM- and $(N\ensuremath{-}M)$-body density matrices ${\ensuremath{\rho}}^{(M)}$ and ${\ensuremath{\rho}}^{(N\ensuremath{-}M)}$. The formalism also allows for reduced yet still exact Schmidt-like decompositions associated with blocks of these densities, in systems having a fixed fraction of the particles in some single-particle subspace. Monotonicity of the ensuing MMM-body entanglement under a certain set of quantum operations is also discussed. Illustrative examples in fermionic and bosonic systems with pairing correlations are provided, which show that in the presence of dominant eigenvalues in ${\ensuremath{\rho}}^{(M)}$, approximations based on a few terms of the pertinent Schmidt expansion can provide a reliable description of the state. The associated one- and two-body entanglement spectrum and entropies are also analyzed.