Perturbations in generalized Galileon theories

Abstract

We discuss the approaches by Deffayet et al. (DPSV) and Kobayashi et al. (KYY) to the analysis of linearized scalar perturbations about a spatially flat FLRW background in Horndeski theory. We identify additional, potentially important terms in the DPSV approach. However, these terms vanish upon a judicious gauge choice. We derive a gauge invariant quadratic action for metric and Galileon perturbations in $\mathcal{L}_3$ and $\mathcal{L}_3+\mathcal{L}_4$ theories and show that actions obtained in the DPSV and KYY approaches follow from this gauge invariant action in particular gauges.