Infrared sensitivity of cosmological probes in Horndeski theory

Cosmological probes constructed in large-scale surveys are independent of the underlying theory of gravity, and their relativistic descriptions are indeed applicable to any theory of gravity. It was shown that the presence of fluctuations with wavelengths much larger than the characteristic scales of the surveys has no impact on cosmological probes if the matter content is adiabatic and the Einstein equations are used. In this paper we study the sensitivity of cosmological probes to infrared fluctuations in the Horndeski theory. We find that the extra degree of freedom (dof) in the Horndeski scalar field can induce sensitivity to infrared fluctuations in the cosmological probes, even when the matter components are adiabatic on large scales. A generalized adiabatic condition including the extra dof, in contrast, guarantees that cosmological probes are devoid of infrared sensitivity, and this solution corresponds to the adiabatic modes a` la Weinberg in the Horndeski theory, which can be removed by a coordinate transformation in the infrared limit. We discuss the implications of our findings and the connections to the initial conditions.