Renormalized Effective Actions in Radially Symmetric Backgrounds: Exact Calculations Versus Approximation Methods

Our previously-developed calculational method (the partial wave cutoff method) is employed to evaluate explicitly scalar one-loop effective actions in a class of radially symmetric background gauge fields. Our method proves to be particularly effective when it is used in conjunction with a systematic WKB series for the large partial wave contribution to the effective action. By comparing these numerically exact calculations against the predictions based on the large mass expansion and derivative expansion, we discuss the validity ranges of the latter approximation methods.