The time of life of fermionic quasiparticles, the distribution of which in
the momentum-energy space can be measured by angle resolved photoemission
(ARPES), is the first quantity to look for fingerprints of interaction
responsible for the superconducting pairing. Such an approach has been recently
used for superconducting cuprates, but its direct application to pnictides was
not possible due to essential three-dimensionality of the electronic band
structure and magnetic ordering. Here, we report the investigation of the
quasiparticle lifetime in LiFeAs, a non-magnetic stoichiometric superconductor
with a well separated two-dimensional band. We have found two energy scales:
the lower one contains clear fingerprints of optical phonon modes while the
higher scale indicates a presence of strong electron-electron interaction. The
result suggests that LiFeAs is a phonon mediated superconductor with strongly
enhanced electronic density of states at the Fermi level.Comment: reevaluated electron-phonon coupling strength, added reference
