Scalaron tunneling and the fate of antisymmetric tensor fields in F(R) gravity

Abstract

The work provides a possible explanation of a well motivated question—why the present Universe is practically free from any noticeable footmarks of higher rank antisymmetric tensor fields, despite having the signatures of scalar, vector, fermion as well as symmetric rank 2 tensor field in the form of gravity? The explanation proposed here originates from the higher curvature degrees of freedom present in a F(R) gravity model. In such a model, we show that the scalar degree of freedom (also known as scalaron) associated with the higher curvature term may undergo a quantum tunneling which in turn suppresses the couplings of antisymmetric massless tensor fields with various standard model fields.