2024/06/19 by Vito Marino, Alberto Scazzola, Marino, Vito +7 · 1 citation
Materials Science · #FOS: Physical sciences #Iron-based superconductors research #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) #Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2406.13634
openalex publication_date 2024/06/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study a three-orbital Hubbard-Kanamori model relevant for iron-based superconductors using variational wave functions explicitly including spatial correlations and electron pairing. We span the nonmagnetic sector from filling n=4, which is representative of undoped iron-based superconductors, to n=3, where a Mott insulating state with each orbital at half filling is found. In the strong-coupling regime, when the electron density is increased, we find a spontaneous differentiation between the occupation of dxz and dyz orbitals, leading to an orbital-selective state with a nematic character that becomes stronger at increasing density. One of these orbitals stays half-filled for all densities while the other one hosts (together with the dxy orbital) the excess of electron density. Most importantly, in this regime long-range pairing correlations appear in the orbital with the largest occupation. Our results highlight a strong link between orbital-selective correlations, nematicity, and superconductivity, which requires the presence of a significant Hund's coupling.