Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2017 / ii / Paper 2 / 34D / b / i

For noninteracting fermions, each single-particle level has occupation $n_i\in \{0,1\}$ by the Pauli exclusion principle. A microstate has $E={\sum }_i{ϵ}_i{n}_i$, $N={\sum }_i{n}_i$, so its grand-canonical weight is the product of its independent level weights. The grand potential is $\Omega =-kT\log \mathcal{Z}$; the particle number, entropy and pressure follow from $N=-{\partial }_{\mu }\Omega$, $S=-{\partial }_T\Omega$ and $P=-{\partial }_V\Omega$. This occupation description is the basis for the product, continuum and adiabatic calculations.

Summing separately over the two allowed occupations of every level givesThusThe factorization uses the absence of interactions; each level, including any degeneracy labels, is counted separately.