Effect of Spin on the Stability of Matter

Abstract

It was already expected as early as the beginning of the 20^th century that the Pauli exclusion principle, involved with spin ½ statistics, was necessary to prevent matter from making a high density phase transition and ensure its stability. The actual theoretical demonstration that matter would be unstable if the exclusion principle is abolished came much later through the rigorous study of Freeman Dyson in 1967. In this article, we review the elegant work of Dyson as well as subsequent mathematically rigorous studies carried out of such “bosonic matter” and, in the process, pin point the physical meaning of stability of matter. In particular, we investigate the enormous energy already released by bringing into contact two bosonic systems each containing a number of particles comparable to those found in a test tube, thus providing a clear cut explanation of the instability of matter without the exclusion principle.