Thermodynamical properties of a mean-field plus pairing model and applications for the Fe nuclei

A mean-field plus pairing model for atomic nuclei in the Fe region was studied using a finite-temperature quantum Monte-Carlo method. We present results for thermodynamical quantities such as the internal energy and the specific heat. These results give indications of a phase transition related to the pairing amongst nucleons, around temperatures of 0.7 MeV. The influence of the residual interaction and of the size of the model space on the nuclear level densities is discussed too.