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Abstract

The thermodynamics of black holes provides a profound link between gravity, quantum theory and statistical mechanics. It serves as a useful tool for testing theories beyond Einstein's gravity. In this work of ours, we investigate the newly found restricted phase space thermodynamics (RPST) of charged static and charged rotating black holes in $f(R)$ gravity. Unlike the extended phase space (EPST) approach, RPST keeps the cosmological constant fixed and introduces the central charge $C$ along with its conjugate chemical potential $\mu$, thereby allowing the black hole mass to be consistently interpreted as internal energy. Within this framework, we derive the relevant thermodynamic quantities and analyse the temperature-entropy $(T-S)$ and Helmholtz free energy-temperature $(F-T)$ behaviours. Our results reveal characteristic features of first-order phase transitions through non-monotonic $T-S$ curves along with the swallow-tail structures in $F-T$ plots, while second-order transitions appear at critical points. To further validate these findings, we employ the formalism of geometrothermodynamics (GTD), which provides a Legendre-invariant geometric description of thermodynamic geometry. We demonstrate that the curvature singularities of the GTD scalar curvature coincides exactly with that of the divergences in the specific heat capacity curves, thereby establishing a geometric correspondence for phase transitions. This study facilitates the first systematic exploration of RPST within $f(R)$ gravity and highlights the universality of RPST in capturing black hole criticality in modified gravity theories.