  The path-integral calculation for the free energy of a spin-1/2 Dirac-fermion
gas is performed in spherical polar coordinates for a flat spacetime geometry.
Its equivalence with the Cartesian-coordinate representation is explicitly
established. This evaluation involves a relevant limiting case of the fermionic
path integral in a Schwarzschild background, whose near-horizon limit has been
shown to be related to black hole thermodynamics.
