Pauli Principle , Reloaded

Pauli’s exclusion principle says two identical fermions cannot be in the same quantum state. In recent years, physicists have discovered a more general form of the principle that puts additional mathematical constraints on the quantum wave function describing multiple fermions. In Physical Review Letters, Christian Schilling [1] at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, and colleagues study a simple model to gain insight into how these additional constraints may affect the physical properties of the many-bodied wave function. Their findings may lead to new ways to simplify quantum calculations, such as those used to describe the electrons of an atom or molecule.