  Approximate heavy-quark spin and flavor symmetry and chiral symmetry play an
important role in our understanding of the nonperturbative regime of strong
interactions. In this work, utilizing the unitarized chiral perturbation
theory, we explore the consequences of these symmetries in the description of
the interactions between the ground-state singly charmed (bottom) baryons and
the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons. In particular, at leading order in the
chiral expansion, by fixing the only parameter in the theory to reproduce the
$\Lambda_b(5912)$ [$\Lambda_b^*(5920)$] or the $\Lambda_c(2595)$
[$\Lambda_c^*(2625)$], we predict a number of dynamically generated states,
which are contrasted with those of other approaches and available experimental
data. In anticipation of future lattice QCD simulations, we calculate the
corresponding scattering lengths and compare them to the existing predictions
from a $\mathcal{O}(p^3)$ chiral perturbation theory study. In addition, we
estimate the effects of the next-to-leading-order potentials by adopting
heavy-meson Lagrangians and fixing the relevant low-energy constants using
either symmetry or naturalness arguments. It is shown that higher-order
potentials play a relatively important role in many channels, indicating that
further studies are needed once more experimental or lattice QCD data become
available.
