  One of the major differences between fermions and bosons is that fermionic
states have a maximum occupation number of one, whereas the occupation number
for bosonic states is in principle unlimited. For bosons that are made up of
fermions, one could ask the question to what extent the Pauli principle for the
constituent fermions would limit the boson occupation number. Intuitively one
can expect the maximum occupation number to be proportional to the available
volume for the bosons divided by the volume occupied by the fermions inside one
boson, though a rigorous derivation of this result has not been given before.
In this letter we show how the maximum occupation number can be calculated from
the ground-state energy of a fermionic generalized pairing problem. A very
accurate analytical estimate of this eigenvalue is derived. From that a general
expression is obtained for the maximum occupation number of a composite boson
state, based solely on the intrinsic fermionic structure of the bosons. The
consequences for Bose-Einstein condensates of excitons in semiconductors and
ultra cold trapped atoms are discussed.
