Irrotational-fluid cosmologies in fourth-order gravity

In this paper, we explore classes of irrotational-fluid cosmological models in the context of f(R)-gravity in an attempt to put some theoretical and mathematical restrictions on the form of the f(R) gravitational Lagrangian. In particular, we investigate the consistency of linearised dust models for shear-free cases as well as in the limiting cases when either the gravito-magnetic or gravito-elecric components of the Weyl tensor vanish. We also discuss the existence and consistency of classes of non-expanding irrotational spacetimes in f(R)-gravity.