Irrelevance of the Pauli principle in distant correlations between identical fermions

Abstract

Distant correlation experiments with identical fermions (e.g. protons, as in the work of Lamehi-Rachti and Mittig 1976) require a theory which includes the Pauli principle. This fact makes an immediate application of the usual quantum mechanical distant correlation theories impossible, because the exclusion principle precludes the interpretation of particles as subsystems. Utilising the fact that the measuring apparata (for one-particle measurements) are in two non-overlapping spatial regions, it is shown that there exists a mapping preserving all the relevant physical information that allows a transformation to a distinct-particle picture, in which the particles can be naturally treated as subsystems, and the relevant observables have the usual simple form. It is argued that, due to the existence of this mapping, the Pauli non-local correlations do not contribute to distant correlations between identical fermions. A negentropy measure of distant correlations is introduced and discussed. It is demonstrated that they are necessarily of dynamical origin.