Persistence and Reidentification in Systems of Identical Quantum Particles: Towards a Post-Atomistic Conception of Matter

The quantum symmetrization procedure used to handle systems of identical quantum particles brings into question whether the elementary constituents of matter, such as electrons, have the fundamental characteristics of persistence and reidentifiability that are attributed to classical particles.

However, we presently lack a coherent conception of matter composed of entities that do not possess one or both of these fundamental characteristics. We also lack a clear a priori understanding of why systems of identical particles (as opposed to non-identical particles) require special mathematical treatment, and this only in the quantum mechanical (as opposed to classical mechanical) setting.
Here, on the basis of a conceptual analysis of a recent mathematical reconstruction of the quantum symmetrization procedure [1, 2], I argue that the need for the symmetrization procedure originates in the confluence of identicality and the active nature of the quantum measurement process [3]. I propose a conception in which detection-events are ontologically primary, while the notion of individually persistent object is relegated to merely one way of bringing order to these events.  On this basis, I describe a new interpretation of the symmetrization procedure, which gives a new physical interpretation to the indices in symmetrized states and to non-symmetric measurement operators, and may provide a new approach to the vexing question of entanglement in identical particle systems.

[1] P. Goyal, Informational approach to the quantum symmetrization postulate, New Journal of Physics 17 013043 (2015)
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/17/1/013043

[2] P. Goyal, Persistence and nonpersistence as complementary models of identical quantum particle, New Journal of Physics 21 063031 (2019)
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/ab152b

[3] P. Goyal, Persistence and Reidentification in Systems of Identical Quantum Particles: Towards a Post-Atomistic Conception of Matter (2023)
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/21849/