Stability criterion for white dwarfs in Palatini <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>f</mml:mi><mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo><mml:mi>R</mml:mi><mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:math> gravity

Recent observations of several peculiar over- and underluminous type Ia supernovae infer indirect evidence for the violation of the Chandrasekhar mass limit by suggesting the existence of super- and sub-Chandrasekhar limiting mass white dwarfs. In an attempt to explain these phenomena in the context of general relativistic extensions, we study these objects in Palatini $f(R)$ gravity. We obtain the super- and sub-Chandrasekhar limiting masses as well as the dynamical instability criteria for white dwarfs in the given gravitational theory. We further demonstrate that the conventional positivity condition $\ensuremath{\partial}M/\ensuremath{\partial}{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{\mathrm{c}}&gt;0$ with $M$ being the WD's mass with central density ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{\mathrm{c}}$ is also a valid criterion for stability in Palatini gravity.

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