Freeze-in production of scalaron dark matter in f(R) gravity

2025/06/06 by Basabendu Barman, Barman, Basabendu, Ashmita Das +4
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2506.06436

openalex publication_date 2025/06/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We demonstrate that the scalaron, a scalar degree of freedom, emerging from the f(R) theory of gravity, can account for the observed dark matter (DM) abundance if its mass is around the MeV scale, to ensure its cosmological stability. Focusing on two well-known f(R) gravity models, we systematically show that if scalaron production proceeds via the freeze-in mechanism, the right relic abundance is satisfied over a very narrow window of reheating temperature 10¹⁴\lesssim T_{\rm rh}\lesssim 10¹⁶ GeV. We delineate the viable parameter space of the f(R) models consistent with the observed DM abundance, and highlight relevant experimental constraints from searches targeting DM decay signatures.

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