RIGOROUS SEMICLASSICAL RESULTS FOR THE MAGNETIC RESPONSE OF AN ELECTRON GAS
Consider a free electron gas in a confining potential and a magnetic field in arbitrary dimensions. If this gas is in thermal equilibrium with a reservoir at temperature T>0, one can study its orbital magnetic response (omitting the spin). One defines a conveniently "smeared out" magnetization M, and the corresponding magnetic susceptibility χ, which will be analyzed from a semiclassical point of view, namely when ℏ (the Planck constant) is small compared to classical actions characterizing the system. Then various regimes of temperature T are studied where M and χ can be obtained in the form of suitable asymptotic ℏ-expansions. In particular when T is of the order of ℏ, oscillations "à la de Haas-van Alphen" appear, that can be linked to the classical periodic orbits of the electronic motion.