Matter really does matter, or Why f(R,Matter) type theories are significant for gravitational physics and cosmology

Abstract

In a recent paper (Lacombe et al., 2024), the authors provided an in-depth analysis of a class of modified gravity theories, generally called $f(R,\mathrm{Matter})$ theories, which assume the existence of a non-minimal coupling between geometry and matter. It was argued that if the matter sector consists of Standard Model particles, then these theories suffer from the presence of ghosts, or are just scalar/vector-tensor theories. Hence, the relevance of these theories for cosmology was questioned. It is the goal of the present work to carefully analyze, discuss, and assess the line of arguments proposed in Lacombe et al. (2024). After a qualitative critical discussion of the five general arguments proposed for the validity of a gravitational theory, we present the theoretical foundations of $f(R,\mathrm{Matter})$ theories, including their possible relations with quantum gravity, and discuss in detail the role of matter. The matter source discussed in Lacombe et al., consisting predominantly of a massless scalar field, is extremely restrictive, and rather irrelevant to cosmology and the description of the observational data. We also devote a detailed discussion of the problem of the energy scales of the $f(R,\mathrm{Matter})$ theories. To test the observational relevance of this type of theories we present the comparison of a simple theoretical model with a small set of observational data and with the $\Lambda$CDM paradigm. We conclude by pointing out that the analysis of Lacombe et al. (2024), even very useful for the understanding of some limited aspects of the $f(R,\mathrm{Matter})$ theories, and of their theoretical foundations, cannot be considered as a valid or definite criticism of these approaches to gravity.