Chiral perturbation theory

Chiral perturbation theory is the low-energy effective field theory of pseudo-Goldstone bosons from chiral symmetry breaking. It expands amplitudes in derivatives and light-quark masses over the chiral scale.

For condensate normalization $⟨{\bar{q}}_{Lj}{q}_{Ri}⟩=-v{\delta }_{ij}$, replacing the condensate matrix by $-vU$ maps the real quark mass matrix $M=\mathrm{diag}(m_u,m_d)$ to $v\mathrm{tr}[M(U+U^{†})]$. Since $(\mathbf{\pi }\cdot \mathbf{\tau }{)}^2=|\mathbf{\pi }{|}^{2}I$, expansion gives a constant minus $v(m_u+m_d)|\mathbf{\pi }{|}^2/F^2$. Comparison with $-m_{\pi }^2|\mathbf{\pi }{|}^2/2$ gives the displayed common leading mass. Strong isospin-breaking mass splitting enters beyond this leading action; electromagnetic effects are also excluded.

For $U\in SU(2)$ with $U\mapsto AU{B}^{-1}$, the chiral group acts transitively. A derivative-free invariant is therefore constant. At $U=I$, its diagonal stabilizer acts on tangent vectors by the irreducible three-dimensional rotation representation; the only invariant symmetric metric is a multiple of ${\delta }_{ab}$. Transporting this metric gives the displayed unique Lorentz-invariant two-derivative action up to normalization and total derivatives. Equivalently, $U^{†}{\partial }_{\mu }U$ is traceless, eliminating a separate double-trace invariant. Writing $U=\exp (i{\pi }_a{\tau }_a/F)$ and using $\mathrm{tr}({\tau }_a{\tau }_b)=2{\delta }_{ab}$ gives canonically normalized pion kinetic terms.