Quon Statistics for Composite Systems and a Limit on the Violation of the Pauli Principle for Nucleons and Quarks

The quon algebra describes particles, “quons,” that are neither fermions nor bosons. The parameter $q$ attached to a quon labels a smooth interpolation between bosons ( $q=+1\mathrm{}$) and fermions ( $q=-1\mathrm{}$). Wigner and Ehrenfest and Oppenheimer showed that a composite system of identical bosons and fermions is a fermion if it contains an odd number of fermions and is a boson otherwise. We generalize this and show that $q_{\mathrm{composite}}{=q}_{\mathrm{constituent}}^{n^2}$ for a system of $n$ identical quons. Using this generalization, we find bounds on possible violations of the Pauli exclusion principle for nucleons and quarks based on such bounds for nuclei.