Near-degeneracy of several pairing channels in multiorbital models for the Fe pnictides

Abstract

Weak-coupling approaches to the pairing problem in the iron pnictide superconductors have predicted a wide variety of superconducting ground states. We argue here that this is due both to the inadequacy of certain approximations to the effective low-energy band structure, and to the natural near-degeneracy of different pairing channels in superconductors with many distinct Fermi surface sheets. In particular, we review attempts to construct two-orbital effective band models, the argument for their fundamental inconsistency with the symmetry of these materials, and the comparison of the dynamical susceptibilities in two- and five-orbital models. We then present results for the magnetic properties, pairing interactions, and pairing instabilities within a five-orbital Random Phase Approximation model. We discuss the robustness of these results for different dopings, interaction strengths, and variations in band structure. Within the parameter space explored, an anisotropic, sign-changing s-wave state and a d_x2-y2 state are nearly degenerate, due to the near nesting of Fermi surface sheets.