Thermal properties of 54Fe.

We study the thermal properties of 54Fe with the Brown-Richter interaction in the complete 1p0f model space. Monte Carlo calculations show a peak in the heat capacity and rapid increases in both the moment of inertia and M1 strength near a temperature of 1.1 MeV that are associated with the vanishing of proton-proton and neutron-neutron monopole pair correlations; neutron-proton correlations persist to higher temperatures. Our results are consistent with a Fermi gas level density whose backshift vanishes with increasing temperature.