Renormalization of Lorentz non-invariant actions and manifest T-duality

We study general two-dimensional σ-models which do not possess manifest Lorentz invariance. We show how demanding that Lorentz invariance is recovered as an emergent on-shell symmetry constrains these σ-models. The resulting actions have an underlying group-theoretic structure and resemble Poisson–Lie T-duality invariant actions. We consider the one-loop renormalization of these models and show that the quantum Lorentz anomaly is absent. We calculate the running of the couplings in general and show, with certain non-trivial examples, that this agrees with that of the T-dual models obtained classically from the duality invariant action. Hence, in these cases solving constraints before and after quantization are commuting operations.