QUANTUM CORRECTIONS TO THE SKYRMION MASS

One-loop corrections to the classical soliton mass are evaluated for t he nonlinear-sigma model, and the Skyrme model, without and with a six th-order extension. The chiral-covariant renormalization scheme follow s closely the procedure used in chiral perturbation theory to make sur e that the resulting effective action is compatible with the results o btained in ChPT up to chiral order four. The magnitude of the chiral g radients involved in the soliton profile requires that counterterms an d finite loop corrections are evaluated to all chiral orders. In semic lassical approximation, traces are replaced by phase-space integrals. This allows for analytical expressions for zero-mode and continuum con tributions to the Casimir energy and for the counterterms. The numeric al results confirm-the conjecture that the loop corrections are domina ted by the zero-mode contributions and support the previous result of Moussallam that for the ChPT-action augmented by a standard sixth-orde r extension, the baryon mass is near the actual nucleon mass.