Reparameterisation invariance constraints on heavy particle effective field theories

Abstract

Since fields in the heavy quark effective theory are described by both a velocity and a residual momentum, there is redundancy in the theory: small shifts in velocity may be absorbed into a redefinition of the residual momentum. We demonstrate that this trivial reparameterisation invariance has non-trivial consequences: it relates coefficients of terms of different orders in the 1 m expansion and requires linear combinations of these operators to be multiplicatively renormalised. For example, the operator − 2 2m in the effective lagrangian has zero anomalous dimension, coefficient one, and does not receive any non-perturbative contributions from matching conditions. We also demonstrate that this invariance severely restricts the forms of operators which may appear in chiral lagrangians for heavy particles.