Nodes vs. minima in the energy gap of iron-pnictides from field-induced anisotropy

Abstract

We develop the formalism for computing the oscillations of the specific heat and thermal transport under rotated magnetic field in multiband superconductors with anisotropic gap and apply it to iron-pnictides. We show that these oscillations change sign at low temperatures and fields, which strongly influences the conclusions about the gap structure based on experiment. We find that recent measurements of the specific heat oscillations indicate that the iron-based superconductors possess an anisotropic gap with deep minima or nodes close to the line connecting electron and hole pockets. We make predictions for the behavior of the thermal conductivity that will help distinguish between these cases.