Invisibility of antisymmetric tensor fields in the light of $F(R)$ gravity

Abstract

A natural question arises from observable signatures of scalar, fermion, and vector degrees of freedom (d.o.f.) in our Universe along with spin 2 symmetric tensor field in the form of gravity: why is our Universe is free of any perceptible signature of massless antisymmetric tensor modes? This work brings out a natural explanation of these phenomena through higher curvature quantum d.o.f. in the gravity sector that were dominant in the early universe. In the backdrop of a F(R) gravity model, we propose how the scalar d.o.f. associated with higher curvature term in the model can generate a heavily suppressed coupling between any antisymmetric massless modes and various standard model fields.