A super-horizon conservation law in non-adiabatic Horndeski theories and the validity of perturbation theory

We first point out that generic Horndeski theories in a Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker background are non-adiabatic. Therefore, curvature perturbations on super-horizon scales are generically not conserved. Nevertheless, we show that the re-scaled Mukhanov-Sasaki variable is conserved implying a constraint equation for the Newtonian potential. In the general case, the super-horizon Newtonian potential can potentially grow to very large values after inflation exit. If that happens, inflationary predictability is lost during the oscillating period. When this does not happen, the perturbations generated during inflation can be standardly related to the CMB, if the theory chosen is minimal at low energies. As a concrete example, we analytically and numerically discuss the new Higgs inflationary case. There, the Inflaton is the Higgs boson that is non-minimally kinetically coupled to gravity. During the high-energy part of the post-inflationary oscillations, the system is anisotropic and the Newtonian potential is largely amplified. Thanks to the smallness of today's amplitude of curvature perturbations, however, the system stays in the linear regime, so that inflationary predictions are not lost. At low energies, when the system relaxes to the minimal case, the anisotropies disappear and the Newtonian potential converges to a constant value. We show that the constant value to which the Newtonian potential converges is related to the frozen part of curvature perturbations during inflation, precisely like in the minimal case.