We introduce a method to obtain the specific heat of quantum impurity models via a direct calculation of the impurity internal energy requiring only the evaluation of local quantities within a single numerical renormalization group (NRG) calculation for the total system. For the Anderson impurity model, we show that the impurity internal energy can be expressed as a sum of purely local static correlation functions and a term that involves also the impurity Green function. The temperature dependence of the latter can be neglected in many cases, thereby allowing the impurity specific heat, $C_{rm imp}$, to be calculated accurately from local static correlation functions; specifically via $C_{rm imp}=frac{partial E_{rm ionic}}{partial T} + 1/2frac{partial E_{rm hyb}}{partial T}$, where $E_{rm ionic}$ and $E_{rm hyb}$ are the energies of the (embedded) impurity and the hybridization energy, respectively. The term involving the Green function can also be evaluated in cases where its temperature dependence is non-negligible, adding an extra term to $C_{rm imp}$. For the non-degenerate Anderson impurity model, we show by comparison with exact Bethe ansatz calculations that the results recover accurately both the Kondo induced peak in the specific heat at low temperatures as well as the high temperature peak due to the resonant level. The approach applies to multiorbital and multichannel Anderson impurity models with arbitrary local Coulomb interactions. An application to the Ohmic two state system and the anisotropic Kondo model is also given, with comparisons to Bethe ansatz calculations. The new approach could also be of interest within other impurity solvers, e.g., within quantum Monte Carlo techniques.
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