Superconductivity in FeSe: the role of nematic order

Abstract

Bulk FeSe is a special iron-based material in which superconductivity emerges inside a well-developed nematic phase. We present a microscopic model for this nematic superconducting state, which takes into account the mixing between $s-$wave and $d-$wave pairing channels and the changes in the orbital spectral weight promoted by the sign-changing nematic order parameter. We show that nematicity gives rise to a $\cos2\theta$ variation of the pairing gap on the hole pocket that agrees with ARPES and STM data for experimentally-extracted Fermi surface parameters. We further argue that, in BCS theory, $d_{xz}$ and $d_{yz}$ orbitals give nearly equal contributions to the pairing glue, i.e. nematic order alone accounts for the gap anisotropy, but has little effect on $T_{c}$. This result questions the validity of the concept of orbital-selective pairing. Self-energy corrections, however, make $d_{xz}$ orbital more incoherent and reduce its contribution to pairing.