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Nematicity driven by hybridization in iron-based superconductors

In this paper we study an effective model for the normal state of iron-based superconductors. It has separate, but interacting itinerant and localized degrees of freedom, originating from the d_xz and d_yz, and from d_xy iron orbitals respectively. At low temperatures, below a mean-field phase transition, these different states condense together in an excitonic order parameter. We show that at even lower temperature, after another phase transition, this ordered state can spontaneously break the C_4 lattice symmetry and become nematic. We propose this mechanism as an explanation of the tendency towards nematicity observed in several iron-based compounds.