Superconductivity from orbital nematic fluctuations

Recent experiments suggest that, besides antiferromagnetic fluctuations, nematic fluctuations may contribute to the occurrence of superconductivity in iron pnictides. Motivated by this observation, we study superconductivity from nematic fluctuations in a minimal two-band model. The employed band parameters are appropriate for iron pnictides and lead to four pockets for the Fermi line. It is shown that low-energy, long-wavelength nematic fluctuations within the pockets give rise to strong-coupling superconductivity whereas the large momenta density fluctuations between pockets are rather irrelevant. The obtained transition temperatures are similar to those typically found in the pnictides and are rather robust against repulsive Coulomb interactions. The superconducting and nematic states coexist in a large region of the phase diagram.