Curvature scalar instability in f(R) gravity

An instability in the presence of matter in theories of gravity which include a 1/R correction in the gravitational action has been found by Dolgov and Kawasaki. In the present paper this instability is discussed for f(R) gravity in general. We focus on the Palatini formalism of the theory and it is shown that no such instability occurs in this version of f(R) gravity. The reasons for the appearance of the instability in the metric but not in the Palatini formalism are fully investigated.