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

Abstract

Motivated by the recent experiment of the non-BCS scaling relation of the condensation energy $ΔCE$ vs. $T_c$ ($ΔCE \sim T_c ^β, β\approx 3.5$) [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 $ΔCE \sim T_c ^{3.5}$ 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."

7 pages, 4 figures