Quantum particles in noncommutative spacetime: An identity crisis

Abstract

We argue that the notion of identical particles is no longer well defined in quantum systems governed by non-commutative deformations of space-time symmetries. Such models are characterized by four-momentum space given by a non-abelian Lie group. Our analysis is based on the observation that, for states containing more than one particle, only the total momentum of the system is a well defined quantum number. Such total momentum is obtained from the non-abelian composition of the particles individual momenta which are no longer uniquely defined. The main upshot of our analysis is that all previous attempts to construct Fock spaces for these models rested on wrong assumptions and indeed have been unsuccessful. We also show how the natural braiding of momentum quantum numbers which characterizes the exchange of factors in the tensor product of states is covariant under relativistic transformations thus solving a long standing problem in the field.