Noninteracting fermions, placed in a system with a continuous density of
states, may have zeros in the N-fermion canonical partition function on the
positive real β axis (or very close to it), even for a small number of
particles. This results in a singular free energy, and instability in other
thermal properties of the system. In the context of trapped fermions in a
harmonic oscillator, these zeros are shown to be unphysical. By contrast,
similar bosonic calculations with continuous density of states yield sensible
results.Noninteracting fermions, placed in a system with a continuous density
of states yield sensible results.Comment: 5 pages and 5 figure
