Entanglement and indistinguishability: facing some challenges from a new perspective

OLIMPIA LOMBARDI

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON SERIES A-MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES

ROYAL SOC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2023 vol. 381 p. 1 - 13

0080-4614

While entanglement inthe case of distinguishable particles is clearly understood, in the case ofindistinguishable particles there is still a wide debate regarding basicconceptual issues. Here I will address two such issues. First, the debatealmost always rests on a differentiated treatment of the cases ofdistinguishability and indistinguishability, even with respect to thedefinition of the concept of entanglement. Second, the fact that symmetrizedand anti-symmetrized states of indistinguishable particles are non-factorizableleads to certain perplexities about the very nature of entanglement. In thepresent work, both issues will be addressed from the perspective of an ontologyof properties, which finds its natural expression in the algebraic formalism ofquantum mechanics. The final goal will be to show that the proposed ontologyallows a unified treatment of entanglement in the distinguishability andindistinguishability cases and offers a straightforward way out toperplexities.