Chiral effective theories with a light scalar at one loop

Abstract: There are indications that some theories with spontaneous symmetry breaking also feature a light scalar in their spectrum, with a mass comparable to the one of the Goldstone modes. In this paper, we perform the one-loop renormalization of a theory of Goldstone modes invariant under a chiral $SU(n)\times SU(n)$ symmetry group coupled to a generic scalar singlet. We employ the background field method, together with the heat kernel expansion, to get an expression for the effective action at one loop and single out the anomalous dimensions, which can be read off from the second Seeley-DeWitt coefficient. As a relevant application, we use our master formula to renormalize chiral-scale perturbation theory, an alternative to $SU(3)$ chiral perturbation theory where the $f_0(500)$ meson is interpreted as a dilaton. Based on our results, we briefly discuss strategies to test and discern both effective field theories using lattice simulations.