The Origin of Condensation Energy Scaling of the Fe-based superconductors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the anomalous condensation energy scaling in Fe-based superconductors can be explained by a two-band BCS model with dominant interband pairing, supporting the BCS pairing mechanism in these materials.

Contribution

It shows that the non-BCS-like scaling relation is consistent with a two-band BCS superconductor, providing evidence for the BCS pairing mechanism in Fe-based superconductors.

Findings

Reproduces the $eta oughly 3.5$ scaling relation using a two-band BCS model.

Shows dominant interband interaction explains the anomalous scaling.

Supports BCS mechanism as the pairing origin in Fe-based superconductors.

Abstract

Motivated by the recent experiment of the non-BCS scaling relation of the condensation energy $\Delta CE$ vs. $T_c$ ($\Delta CE \sim T_c ^{\beta}, \beta\approx 3.5$) [PRB 89 140503 (2014)] for the Fe-based superconductors, we studied the CE and $T_c$ of the multiband BCS superconductors. We showed that the experimentally observed anomalous scaling relation $\Delta CE \sim T_c ^{3.5}$ is well reproduced by the two-band BCS superconductor paired by a dominant interband interaction ($V_{inter} > V_{intra}$). Our result implies that this seemingly non-BCS-like scaling behavior, on the contrary to the common expectation, is in fact a strong experimental evidence that the pairing mechanism of the Fe-based superconductors is genuinely a BCS mechanism, meaning that "the Cooper pairs are formed by the itinerant carriers glued by a pairing interaction."