Phys. Rev. B 80, 212502 (2009) [4 pages]Specific-heat jump at the superconducting transition and the quantum critical nature of the normal state of pnictide superconductorsReceived 4 August 2009; revised 25 October 2009; published 10 December 2009 Recently it was discovered that the jump in the specific heat at the superconducting transition in pnictide superconductors is proportional to the superconducting transition temperature to the third power, with the superconducting transition temperature varying from 2 to 25 K including underdoped and overdoped cases. Relying on standard scaling notions for the thermodynamics of strongly interacting quantum critical states, it is pointed out that this behavior is consistent with a normal state that is a quantum critical metal undergoing a pairing instability. © 2009 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.80.212502
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.80.212502
PACS:
71.10.Hf, 74.20.Mn, 74.25.Bt, 74.70.Dd
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