Vectorial versus axial Goldstone bosons

The Yukawa interactions of fermions with Goldstone bosons are given in closed form for an arbitrary renormalizable field theory to all orders of perturbation theory or for a general effective Lagrangian. Although the diagonal couplings are always pseudoscalar there is an important difference between spontaneously broken vector and axial-vector global symmetries. Compared to the axial case, the diagonal couplings of “vectorial” Goldstone bosons to charged fermions are suppressed by mixing angles or appear only via radiative corrections involving gauge fields. This general result may be relevant for the problem of flavour symmetry breaking in composite models.