Calculation of the continuum level density

The single-particle level density of Hamiltonians with continuous spectrum contains a term, the continuum level density, in addition to the contribution of the bound states. For spherical symmetric systems this extra term is related to the scattering phase shift. Definition of the continuum single-particle level density is given for deformed potentials using the scattering S-matrix. Contrary to the common belief it is shown that the Strutinsky smoothed continuum level density can be calculated using harmonic oscillator or any other expansion. The new method avoids the direct calculation of the S-matrix. The smoothed continuum level density is determined as the difference of two densities.