Anisotropy of the dc conductivity due to orbital-selective spin fluctuations in the nematic phase of iron superconductors

[EN] We study the dc conductivity of iron-based superconductors within the orbital-selective spin fluctuation scenario. Within this approach, the anisotropy of spin fluctuations below the spin-nematic transition at TS is also responsible for the orbital ordering, induced by nematic self-energy corrections to the quasiparticle dispersion. As a consequence, the anisotropy of the dc conductivity below TS is determined not only by the anisotropy of the scattering rates as expected within a spin-nematic scenario, but also by the modification of the Fermi velocity due to the orbital reconstruction. More interestingly, it turns out that these two effects contribute to the dc-conductivity anisotropy with opposite signs. By using realistic band-structure parameters we compute the conductivity anisotropy for both 122 and FeSe compounds, discussing the possible origin of the different dc-conductivity anisotropy observed experimentally in these two families of iron-based superconductors.We acknowledge L. Degiorgi for useful discussions. L.B.acknowledges financial support by Italian MAECI under the collaborative Italia-India project SuperTop-PGR04879. B.V. acknowledges funding from MINECO (Spain) via Grant No. FIS2014-53219-P and Fundación Ramón Areces. L.B., L.F., and B.V. acknowledge the cost action Nanocohybri CA16218