Unconventional superconductivity originating from disconnected Fermi surfaces in the iron-based compound

TL;DR

This paper investigates the electronic structure and superconducting mechanism of LaFeAsO$_{1-x}$F$_x$, revealing an unconventional s-wave pairing driven by disconnected Fermi surfaces and spin fluctuations.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed theoretical model linking disconnected Fermi surfaces to unconventional superconductivity in iron-based compounds.

Findings

Spin susceptibility peaks at specific wave vectors due to Fermi surface nesting

Unconventional s-wave pairing with sign change between Fermi pockets

Gap function characterized as a 5x5 matrix

Abstract

The iron-based LaFeAsO$_{1-x}$F$_x$ recently discovered by Hosono's group is a fresh theoretical challenge as a new class of high-temperature superconductors. Here we describe the electronic structure of the material and the mechanism of superconductivity. We start with constructing a tight-binding model in terms of the maximally localized Wannier orbitals from a first-principles electronic structure calculation, which has turned out to involve all the five Fe 3d bands. This is used to calculate the spin and charge susceptibilities with the random phase approximation. The spin susceptibility has peaks around ${\Vec k} = (\pi, 0), (0, \pi)$ arising from a nesting across disconnected Fermi surface pockets. We have then plugged the susceptibilities into the linearised Eliashberg equation. For the doping concentration $x = 0.1$, we obtain an unconventional s-wave pairing, which is roughly an extended s in that the gap changes sign between the Fermi pockets, but the gap function is actually a 5$\times$5 matrix. Its experimental implications are also discussed.