In chemistry and physics, the exchange interaction is a quantum mechanical constraint on the states of indistinguishable particles. While sometimes called an exchange force, or, in the case of fermions, Pauli repulsion, its consequences cannot always be predicted based on classical ideas of force. Both bosons and fermions can experience the exchange interaction.

The wave function of indistinguishable particles is subject to exchange symmetry: the wave function either changes sign (for fermions) or remains unchanged (for bosons) when two particles are exchanged. The exchange symmetry alters the expectation value of the distance between two indistinguishable particles when their wave functions overlap. For fermions the expectation value of the distance increases, and for bosons it decreases (compared to distinguishable particles).

The exchange interaction arises from the combination of exchange symmetry and the Coulomb interaction. For an electron in an electron gas, the exchange symmetry creates an "exchange hole" in its vicinity, which other electrons with the same spin tend to avoid due to the Pauli exclusion principle. This decreases the energy associated with the Coulomb interactions between the electrons with same spin. Since two electrons with different spins are distinguishable from each other and not subject to the exchange symmetry, the effect tends to align the spins. Exchange interaction is the main physical effect responsible for ferromagnetism, and has no classical analogue.

For bosons, the exchange symmetry makes them bunch together, and the exchange interaction takes the form of an effective attraction that causes identical particles to be found closer together, as in Bose–Einstein condensation.

Exchange interaction effects were discovered independently by physicists Werner Heisenberg and Paul Dirac in 1926.

Quantum particles are fundamentally indistinguishable. Wolfgang Pauli demonstrated that this is a type of symmetry: states of two particles must be either symmetric or antisymmetric when coordinate labels are exchanged. In a simple one-dimensional system with two identical particles in two states ${\displaystyle \psi _{a}}$ and ${\displaystyle \psi _{b}}$ the system wavefunction can therefore be written two ways: $${\displaystyle \psi _{a}(x_{1})\psi _{b}(x_{2})\pm \psi _{a}(x_{2})\psi _{b}(x_{1}).}$$ Exchanging ${\displaystyle x_{1}}$ and ${\displaystyle x_{2}}$ gives either a symmetric combination of the states ("plus") or an antisymmetric combination ("minus"). Particles that give symmetric combinations are called bosons; those with antisymmetric combinations are called fermions.

The two possible combinations imply different physics. For example, the expectation value of the square of the distance between the two particles is $${\displaystyle \langle (x_{1}-x_{2})^{2}\rangle _{\pm }=\langle x^{2}\rangle _{a}+\langle x^{2}\rangle _{b}-2\langle x\rangle _{a}\langle x\rangle _{b}\mp 2{\big |}\langle x\rangle _{ab}{\big |}^{2}.}$$ The last term reduces the expected value for bosons and increases the value for fermions but only when the states ${\displaystyle \psi _{a}}$ and ${\displaystyle \psi _{b}}$ physically overlap (${\displaystyle \langle x\rangle _{ab}\neq 0}$).

The physical effect of the exchange symmetry requirement is not a force. Rather it is a significant geometrical constraint, increasing the curvature of wavefunctions to prevent the overlap of the states occupied by indistinguishable fermions. The terms "exchange force" and "Pauli repulsion" for fermions are sometimes used as an intuitive description of the effect but this intuition can give incorrect physical results.