  The thermodynamic properties of systems with long-range interactions is still
an ongoing challenge, both from the point of view of theory as well as computer
simulation. In this work we study a model system, a Coulomb gas confined inside
a sphere, by using the Wang-Landau algorithm. We have computed the
configurational density of states (CDOS), the thermodynamic entropy and the
caloric curve, and compared with microcanonical Metropolis simulations, while
showing how concepts such as the configurational inverse temperature can be
used to understand some aspects of thermodynamic behavior. A dynamical
multistability behavior is seen at low energies in microcanonical Monte Carlo
simulations, suggesting that flat-histogram methods are in fact superior
alternatives to traditional simulation in complex systems.
