Wormholes in $$R^2$$ R2 -gravity within the f(R, T) formalism

Abstract We propose, as a novelty in the literature, the modeling of wormholes within a particular case of f(R, T) gravity, namely $$f(R,T)=R+\alpha R^{2}+\lambda T$$ f(R,T)=R+αR2+λT , with R and T being the Ricci scalar and trace of the energy-momentum tensor, respectively, while $$\alpha $$ α and $$\lambda $$ λ are constants. Although such a functional form application can be found in the literature, those concern compact astrophysical objects, such that no wormhole analysis has been done so far. The quadratic geometric and linear material corrections of this theory render the matter content of the wormhole remarkably able to obey the energy conditions.