We investigate the many-body level density of a gas of noninteracting fermions. We determine its behavior as a function of the temperature and the number of particles. As the temperature increases, and beyond the usual Sommerfeld expansion that describes the degenerate gas behavior, corrections due to a finite number of particles lead to Gumbel-like contributions. We discuss connections with the partition problem in number theory, extreme value statistics, and differences with respect to the Bose gas.

• Received 29 January 2010

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.81.044301