Free energies of triply and quadruply degenerate electron ladder spectra

Abstract

The electronic free energies in metal clusters are calculated based on a simple ladder spectrum for the level degeneracies three and four, and compared with the known results for degeneracies one and two. The low temperature and the asymptotic high temperature results for free energy differences are generalized to ladder spectra of any degeneracy. Remarkably, free energy differences do not approach zero at high energies for size-independent Fermi energies.