Superconductivity driven by the interband Coulomb interaction and implications for the superconducting mechanism of MgB₂

Superconducting mechanism mediated by interband exchange Coulomb repulsion is examined in an extended two-band Hubbard models with a wide band crossing the Fermi level and coexisting with a narrower band located at moderately lower energy. We apply newly developed path-integral renormalization group method to reliably calculate pairing correlations. The correlation shows marked enhancement at moderate amplitudes of the exchange Coulomb repulsion taken smaller than the on-site repulsion for the narrower band. The pairing symmetry is s-wave while it has unconventional phases with the opposite sign between the order parameters on the two bands, in agreement with the mean-field prediction. Since the band structure of recently discovered superconductor MgB₂ shares basic similarities with our model, we propose that the present results provide a relevant clue for the understanding of the superconducting mechanism in MgB₂ as well as in this class of multi-band materials with good metallic conduction in the normal state.