Scalar sigma meson effects in rho and omega decays into pi(0)pi(0)gamma

The complementarity between chiral perturbation theory and the linear sigma model in the scalar channel is exploited to study pi (0)pi (0) production in rho and omega radiative decays, where the effects of a low mass scalar r esonance sigma (500) should manifest. The recently reported data on rho --> pi (0)pi (0)gamma seem to require the contribution of a low mass and moder ately narrow sigma (500). The omega --> pi (0)pi (0)gamma can properties of this controversial state could be fixed by improving the accuracy of these measurements. Data on omega --> pi (0)pi (0)gamma can also be accommodated in our framework, but are much less sensitive to the sigma (500) propertie s. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.