Determining gap nodal structures in Fe-based superconductors: angle-dependence of the low temperature specific heat in an applied magnetic field

Abstract

Since the discovery of high-Tc LaO_1-xF_xFeAs, and other such systems based on FeAs layers, several proposals have been made for the superconducting order parameter Delta_k, on both phenomenological and microscopic grounds. Here we discuss how the symmetry of Delta_k in the bulk can be determined, assuming that single crystals will soon be available. We suggest that a measurement of the dependence of the low temperature specific heat on the angle of a magnetic field in the FeAs plane is the simplest such method, and calculate representative specific heat vs. field angle oscillations for the various candidate states, using a phenomenological band structure fitted to the DFT Fermi surface.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Superconductivity at 25 K in hole doped $(L{a}_{1-x}S{r}_x)OFeAs$

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• 19-F NMR Investigation of Iron-pnictide Superconductor LaFeAsO(0.89)F(0.11)
• Nuclear magnetic relaxation and superfluid density in Fe-pnictide superconductors: An anisotropic \pm s-wave scenario
• Scanning tunneling microscopy of the 32 K superconductor (Sr1-xKx)Fe2As2