  The nuclear density of states plays an important role in nuclear reactions.
At high energies, above a few MeV, the nuclear density of states is well
described by a formula that depends on the smooth single particle density of
states at the Fermi surface, the nuclear shell correction and the pairing
energy. In this paper we present an analysis of the low energy behaviour of the
nuclear density of states using the saddle point approximation and extensions
to it. Furthermore, we prescribe a simple parabolic form for excitation energy,
in the low energy limit, which may facilitate an easy computation of level
densities.
