Boson bloom

Abstract

The year 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the first article on Bose statistics. Bose breathed life into the Planck distribution of radiation by a microscopic derivation (Bose 1924 Z. Phys. 26 178), adding a new insight, namely indistinguishability into the then evolving quantum theory. Einstein recognized the importance of this article and got it published. Using Bose statistics Einstein wrote an article on the theory (Einstein 1924 Sutzungsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss Phys.-Math Kl. 261) of an ideal Bose gas and Bose–Einstein condensation. The groundbreaking discovery of Bose, an unveiling of a secret of quantum mechanics, continues to reverberate after a century. Bose’s paper is considered the fourth important paper in old quantum theory, following Planck’s (1900) article (Planck 1900 Verh. Disch Phys. Ges. 2 202), Einstein’s (1905) photoelectric effect (Einstein 1905 Ann. Phys., Lpz. 17 132) and Bohr’s model (1913) of the atom (Bohr 1913 London, Edinburgh Dublin Phil. Mag. J. Sci. 26 1). Dirac (1926 Proc. R. Soc. A 112 661) coined the name boson for one of the two families of indistinguishable particles, the other family being fermion. The edifice of modern quantum field theory, many-body quantum theory, quantum-information and quantum-computing are built on bosons, fermions and anyons. The ever-blooming quantum garden of bosons has photons, gluons, W-bosons, mesons, Higgs-bosons, gravitons, phonons, magnons, excitons, plasmons, polaritons and so on. We present a brief historical account of Bose’s life and his discovery, followed by a bird’s eye view of the impacts of bosons in modern science and technology: from Bose’s distribution of 3-degree background radiation reaching us in the form of cosmic microwave background from the big bang era to boson sampling, a novel quantum computing method. Bosogenesis before Baryogenesis?: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light (Genesis, 1:4)