On the absence of the usual weak-field limit, and the impossibility of embedding some known solutions for isolated masses in cosmologies with f(R) dark energy

The problem of matching different regions of spacetime in order to construct inhomogeneous cosmological models is investigated in the context of Lagrangian theories of gravity constructed from general analytic functions f(R), and from nonanalytic theories with f(R) = R-n. In all of the cases studied, we find that it is impossible to satisfy the required junction conditions without the large-scale behavior reducing to that expected from Einstein's equations with a cosmological constant. For theories with analytic f(R) this suggests that the usual treatment of weak-field systems as perturbations about Minkowski space may not be compatible with late-time acceleration driven by anything other than a constant term of the form f(0), which acts like a cosmological constant. In the absence of Minkowski space as a suitable background for weak-field systems, one must then choose and justify some other solution to perform perturbative analyses around. For theories with f(R) = R-n we find that no known spherically symmetric vacuum solutions can be matched to an expanding Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker background. This includes the absence of any Einstein-Straus-like embeddings of the Schwarzschild exterior solution in Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker spacetimes. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.87.063517