Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2006/ii/paper-3/34d/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 ii Paper 3 34D Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The chemical potential is , equivalently : it is the free-energy cost of adding a particle at fixed temperature and volume. With units , a large reservoir has entropy to first order. Since the number of compatible reservoir states is proportional to its exponential, the grand canonical ensemble assignsFor independent fermions, a one-particle state of energy has occupation zero or one. Its partition factor is , so the mean occupation is the Fermi-Dirac distribution . Multiplication by the given density of states yields .
At zero temperature the occupation is a step function, filled below and empty above it, so and . At fixed particle number, the low-temperature shift of is and does not affect the leading estimate. In the narrow interval of width above , replace the density of states by and put . ThenEquivalently, the fraction above the Fermi energy is asymptotic to .
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