The General-Relativistic Limit of f(R) Gravity

Abstract

We establish the general-relativistic limit of f(R) gravity coupled to a massless scalar field for small, asymptotically Euclidean, well-prepared Cauchy data near Minkowski spacetime. We prove global existence and future causal geodesic completeness, with uniform estimates for the metric, matter, and rescaled effective field as an admissible family of modified Lagrangians f(R) approaches the Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian R. The physical and conformal metrics and the matter field converge to the limiting Einstein-massless-scalar development, uniformly on the entire future spacetime, together with finitely many space and time derivatives. The effective field, defined by a nonlinear reparametrization of the physical scalar curvature, converges to the scalar curvature of the limiting Einstein development. The main analytical difficulty is that the effective-field mass tends to infinity, while its evolution equation becomes an algebraic trace relation. Small field amplitudes may coexist with high-frequency oscillations and comparatively large derivatives, whose quadratic contributions must be controlled uniformly. Using the Euclidean-hyperboloidal foliation method and adapted wave coordinates, we analyze a quasilinear wave-Klein-Gordon system whose nonlinearities do not satisfy the classical null condition. We combine oscillatory estimates, weighted interior and exterior energies, and propagation estimates for the discrepancy from the Einstein trace relation. Quantitative convergence on compact regions and uniform spacetime decay yield global convergence.