Do bosons obey Bose–Einstein distribution: Two iterated limits of Gentile distribution

Abstract

It is a common impression that by only setting the maximum occupation number to infinity, which is the demand of the indistinguishability of bosons, one can achieve the statistical distribution that bosons obey — the Bose–Einstein distribution. In this Letter, however, we show that only with an infinite maximum occupation number one cannot uniquely achieve the Bose–Einstein distribution, since in the derivation of the Bose–Einstein distribution, the problem of iterated limit is encountered. For achieving the Bose–Einstein distribution, one needs to take both the maximum occupation number and the total number of particles to infinities, and, then, the problem of the order of taking limits arises. Different orders of the limit operations will lead to different statistical distributions. For achieving the Bose–Einstein distribution, besides setting the maximum occupation number, we also need to state the order of the limit operations.