Scalaron production in contracting astrophysical objects

We study the creation of high-energy SM particles in the Starobinsky model of dark energy (a variant of F(R)-gravity) inside the regions contracting due to the Jeans instability. In this modification of gravity, the additional degree of freedom-a scalaron-behaves as a particle with the mass depending on matter density. Therefore, when the mass changes, light scalarons could be created at a nonadiabatic stage. Later, the scalaron mass grows and can reach large values, even the value 10(13) GeV, favored by early time inflation. Heavy scalarons decay contributing to the cosmic ray flux. We analytically calculate the number density of created particles for the exponential (Jeans) contraction and find it negligibly small for the phenomenologically viable and cosmologically interesting range of model parameters. We expect similar results for a generic model of F(R)-gravity mimicking the cosmological constant.