Integrability and renormalizability for the fully anisotropic SU(2) principal chiral field and its deformations

A bstract For the class of 1 + 1 dimensional field theories referred to as the non-linear sigma models, there is known to be a deep connection between classical integrability and one-loop renormalizability. In this work, the phenomenon is reviewed on the example of the so-called fully anisotropic SU(2) Principal Chiral Field (PCF). Along the way, we discover a new classically integrable four parameter family of sigma models, which is obtained from the fully anisotropic SU(2) PCF by means of the Poisson-Lie deformation. The theory turns out to be one-loop renormalizable and the system of ODEs describing the flow of the four couplings is derived. Also provided are explicit analytical expressions for the full set of functionally independent first integrals (renormalization group invariants).