Adiabaticity and gravity theory independent conservation laws for cosmological perturbations

We carefully study the implications of adiabaticity for the behavior of cosmological perturbations. There are essentially three similar but different definitions of non-adiabaticity: one is appropriate for a thermodynamic fluid $δP_{nad}$, another is for a general matter field $δP_{c,nad}$, and the last one is valid only on superhorizon scales. The first two definitions coincide if $c_s^2=c_w^2$ where $c_s$ is the propagation speed of the perturbation, while $c_w^2=\dot P/\dotρ$. Assuming the adiabaticity in the general sense, $δP_{c,nad}=0$, we derive a relation between the lapse function in the comoving sli\-cing $A_c$ and $δP_{nad}$ valid for arbitrary matter field in any theory of gravity, by using only momentum conservation. The relation implies that as long as $c_s\neq c_w$, the uniform density, comoving and the proper-time slicings coincide approximately for any gravity theory and for any matter field if $δP_{nad}=0$ approximately. In the case of general relativity this gives the equivalence between the comoving curvature perturbation $R_c$ and the uniform density curvature perturbation $ζ$ on superhorizon scales, and their conservation. We then consider an example in which $c_w=c_s$, where $δP_{nad}=δP_{c,nad}=0$ exactly, but the equivalence between $R_c$ and $ζ$ no longer holds. Namely we consider the so-called ultra slow-roll inflation. In this case both $R_c$ and $ζ$ are not conserved. In particular, as for $ζ$, we find that it is crucial to take into account the next-to-leading order term in $ζ$'s spatial gradient expansion to show its non-conservation, even on superhorizon scales. This is an example of the fact that adiabaticity (in the thermodynamic sense) is not always enough to ensure the conservation of $R_c$ or $ζ$.

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