On the effective action for scalars in a general manifold to any loop order

Abstract

Functional methods and a derivative expansion are employed for laying out a procedure to compute the effective action to any loop order, for scalar fields parametrising an arbitrary Riemannian manifold, while maintaining explicit field-space covariance. These results are of use in the characterization of effective field theories for electroweak symmetry breaking and extend a geometric perspective in field space beyond one loop.