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 ( q0ex0ex=0ex0ex+1) and fermions ( q0ex0ex=0ex0ex-1). 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 qcomposite0ex0ex=0ex0exqconstituent^n² 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.