Classical phase-space limit of the thermal kernel ($Z\simeq {\lambda }_T^{-d}\int d^{d}x{e}^{-\beta V(x)}$)

For $H=p^2/(2m)+V(x)$ and a smooth potential on scales larger than the thermal de Broglie wavelength ${\lambda }_T=\sqrt{2\pi \beta {\hslash }^2/m}$, the diagonal thermal kernel approaches $⟨x|e^{-\beta H}|x⟩\simeq {\lambda }_T^{-d}{e}^{-\beta V(x)}$. Integration over its diagonal gives the classical phase space integral with one factor $(2\pi \hslash {)}^{-1}$ per coordinate-momentum pair. Exchange and boundary corrections must be small; a positive imaginary-time weight by itself does not make an arbitrary quantum system classical.