Damping of cosmological tensor modes in Horndeski theories after GW170817

Abstract: This paper investigates the propagation of cosmological gravitational waves interacting with free-streaming neutrinos within the context of Horndeski theories of gravity constrained by the detection of GW170817. We apply the theory of cosmological perturbations to explicitly derive the Einstein-Boltzmann equation for the damped propagation of first-order transverse traceless gravitational waves. In contrast to general relativity, we argue that modified gravity can give rise to non-vanishing free-streaming damping effects during the cosmological matter dominated era. We also provide an analytic formula for the main multipole order with which modified gravity and free-streaming neutrinos damp the variety of tensor correlation functions of the cosmic microwave background.