The postulate that electrons must be described by wavefunctions which are antisymmetric
with respect to interchange of the coordinates (including spin) of a pair of electrons.
A corollary of the principle is the
Pauli exclusion principle. All particles with half-integral spin (fermions) are described by antisymmetric
wavefunctions, and all particles with zero or integral spin (bosons) are described
by symmetric wavefunctions.
Source:
Cite as:
IUPAC. Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. (the "Gold Book"). Compiled by
A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford (1997).
XML on-line corrected version: http://goldbook.iupac.org (2006-) created by M. Nic,
J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN 0-9678550-9-8.
https://doi.org/10.1351/goldbook.
