s plus is superconductivity with incipient bands: Doping dependence and STM signatures

Motivated by the recent observations of small Fermi energies and comparatively large superconducting gaps, present also on bands not crossing the Fermi energy (incipient bands) in iron-based superconductors, we analyze the doping evolution of superconductivity in a four-band model across the Lifshitz transition including BCS-BEC crossover effects on the shallow bands. Similar to the BCS case, we find that with hole doping the phase difference between superconducting order parameters of the hole bands change from 0 to pi through an intermediate s + is state, breaking time-reversal symmetry (TRS). The transition, however, occurs in the region where electron bands are incipient and chemical potential renormalization in the superconducting state leads to a significant broadening of the s + is region. We further present the qualitative features of the s + is state that can be observed in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments, also taking incipient bands into account.