Comment on "Superconductivity at low density near a ferroelectric quantum critical point: Doped SrTiO3"

Abstract

W\"olfle and Balatsky Phys. Rev. B 98, 104505 (2018) have proposed a microscopic pairing mechanism for doped SrTiO$_3$ (STO) based on the ${\textit gradient}$ coupling of electronic density to the soft TO phonon mode. Since this coupling to TO phonons is usually weak, this conclusion is surprising, especially for a low density superconductor such as STO, where the density of states is small. A crucial step in the argument made by W\"olfle and Balatsky is that the displacement vector of the TO mode is not strictly perpendicular to the momentum vector, making a deformation coupling possible. We show that they have made a mistake in computing the eigenvector and have grossly overestimated this lack of orthogonality. When corrected, the coupling is negligible. We also use transport data to put upper bounds on the coupling constant which are much smaller than the estimate by W\"olfle and Balatsky. Finally, we also object to their use of the Eliashberg equation when the phonon frequency is larger than the Fermi energy.