Gauged Yukawa model in curved spacetime

The Yukawa model in curved spacetime is considered. We consider a complex scalar field coupled to a U(1) gauge field and also interacting with Dirac fields with a general Yukawa coupling. The local momentum space method is used to obtain the one-loop effective action, and we adopt the gauge condition independent background field method introduced by Vilkovisky and DeWitt. The pole parts of the one-loop effective action that depend on the background scalar field, that we do not assume to be constant, are found and used to calculate the counterterms and to determine the relevant renormalization group functions. Terms in the effective action that involve the gradient terms in the scalar field as well as the effective potential are found in the case where the scalar field and Dirac fields are massless. We also discuss the anomaly that arises if the pseudoscalar mass term for the Dirac fermions is removed by a chiral transformation.