Chiral Lagrangian for baryons in the 1/Nc expansion

A 1/Nc expansion of the chiral Lagrangian for baryons is formulated and used to study the low-energy dynamics of baryons interacting with the pion nonet π, K, η, and η' in a combined expansion in chiral symmetry breaking and 1/Nc. Strong CP violation is included. The chiral Lagrangian correctly implements nonet symmetry and contracted spin-flavor symmetry for baryons in the large Nc limit. The implications of nonet symmetry for low-energy baryon-pion interactions are described in detail. The procedure for calculating nonanalytic pion-loop corrections to baryon amplitudes in the 1/Nc expansion for finite Nc is explained. Flavor-27 baryon mass splittings are calculated at leading order in chiral perturbation theory as an example. copyright 1996 The American Physical Society