Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/ii/paper-2/34d/b/i/solution

For noninteracting fermions, each single-particle level has occupation by the Pauli exclusion principle. A microstate has , , so its grand-canonical weight is the product of its independent level weights. The grand potential is ; the particle number, entropy and pressure follow from , and . This occupation description is the basis for the product, continuum and adiabatic calculations.
Summing separately over the two allowed occupations of every level gives
Thus
The factorization uses the absence of interactions; each level, including any degeneracy labels, is counted separately.

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