Raman Scattering Signatures of Kitaev Spin Liquids in A₂ IrO₃ Iridates

We study theoretically the Raman scattering response $I(\omega)$ in the gapless quantum spin liquid phase of the Kitaev-Heisenberg model. The dominant polarization-independent contribution $I_K (\omega)$ reflects the density of states of the emergent Majorana fermions in the ground-state flux-sector. The integrability-breaking Heisenberg exchange generates a second contribution, whose dominant part $I_H (\omega)$ has the form of a quantum quench corresponding to an abrupt insertion of four $Z_2$ gauge fluxes. This results in a weakly polarization dependent response with a sharp peak at the energy of the flux excitation accompanied by broad features, which can be related to Majorana fermions in the presence of the perturbed gauge field. We discuss the experimental situation and explore more generally the influence of integrability breaking for Kitaev spin liquid response functions.