Contribution of the Electron-Phonon Coupling to the Pairing Interaction in LiFeAs

TL;DR

This paper calculates electron-phonon coupling strengths in LiFeAs and finds their limited contribution to the superconducting pairing, suggesting other mechanisms are more significant.

Contribution

It provides detailed calculations of intra- and inter-band electron-phonon couplings and assesses their impact on the superconducting state in LiFeAs.

Findings

Total electron-phonon coupling λ ≈ 0.2

Electron-phonon contribution to pairing is reduced by an order of magnitude

Implication that other mechanisms dominate superconductivity in LiFeAs

Abstract

The coupling strengths for intra- and inter-band electron-phonon pair scattering are calculated for LiFeAs. While the sum of these couplings, which gives the total electron-phonon coupling $\lambda$, is of order 0.2, we find that their contribution to the presumed $s^\pm$ superconducting state is reduced by approximately an order of magnitude.