Superconductivity by hidden spin fluctuations in electron-doped iron selenide

Abstract

Berg, Metlitski and Sachdev, Science 338, 1606 (2012), have shown that the exchange of hidden spin fluctuations by conduction electrons with two orbitals can result in high-temperature superconductivity in copper-oxide materials. We introduce a similar model for high-temperature iron-selenide superconductors that are electron doped. Conduction electrons carry the minimal 3d xz and 3d yz iron-atom orbitals. Low-energy hidden spin fluctuations at the checkerboard wavevector Q_AF result from nested Fermi surfaces at the center and at the corner of the unfolded (one-iron) Brillouin zone. Magnetic frustration from super-exchange interactions via the selenium atoms stabilize hidden spin fluctuations at Q_AF versus true spin fluctuations. At half filling, Eliashberg theory based purely on the exchange of hidden spin fluctuations reveals a Lifshitz transition to electron/hole Fermi surface pockets at the corner of the folded (two-iron) Brillouin zone, but with vanishing spectral weights. The underlying hidden spin-density wave groundstate is therefore a Mott insulator. Upon electron doping, Eliashberg theory finds that the spectral weights of the hole Fermi surface pockets remain vanishingly small, while the spectral weights of the larger electron Fermi surface pockets become appreciable. This prediction is therefore consistent with the observation of electron Fermi surface pockets alone in electron-doped iron selenide by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). Eliashberg theory also finds an instability to S+- superconductivity at electron doping, with isotropic Cooper pairs that alternate in sign between the visible electron Fermi surface pockets and the faint hole Fermi surface pockets. Comparison with the isotropic energy gaps observed in electron-doped iron selenide by ARPES and by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is consistent with short-range hidden magnetic order.