QUONS IN RELATIVISTIC THEORIES MUST BE BOSONS OR FERMIONS
Abstract
The quon algebra describes particles, “quons, ” that are neither fermions nor bosons using a label q that parametrizes a smooth interpolation between bosons (q = +1) and fermions (q = −1). We derive “conservation of statistics” relations for quons in relativistic theories, and show that in relativistic theories quons must be either bosons or fermions. There are three reasons to study theories that allow violations of statistics, i.e., that allow particles that are neither bosons nor fermions. One, which may seem frivolous, is to stretch the framework of quantum physics and to find out what possibilities open up when one does so. The second, quite concrete, is to respond to experimental interest in high-precision tests of the symmetrization postulate (that all identical particles occur in one-dimensional representations of the symmetric