Can I use abbreviations in the title of a research paper?

It is acceptable if (Edit: and only if) the abbreviation you are using is common (in your field or in general) and there is no risk of confusion.

I have two papers whose titles contain the abbreviation (RD) which stands for (Rapid Decay). Since it is an acceptable abbreviation in our field these titles are fine.

The best way to find out is to check similar papers or titles in your field.

There is a big difference between can and good practice. I can think of no reason why it should be considered good practice and a number of reasons why it would be bad practice. despite this, many journals will allow you to use abbreviations in titles, but you will need to check with the editor to see if you can.

I would go against the checking similar papers in the field, and more with checking the submission guidelines.

For example the IEEE Trans in Evolutionary Computation will reject any paper with Acronyms in the title.

Yeah, it just happened to us recently, that is the reason I know, however it was our first time submitting to that Journal, and we had no trouble with acronyms before.

A friend even told us that the very same journal asked him to put the explanation of S.O.S. since it was an acronym as well.

So, I would recommend checking the submission guidelines.