We prove the linear stability of slowly rotating Kerr black holes as solutions of the Einstein vacuum equation: linearized perturbations of a Kerr metric decay at an inverse polynomial rate to a linearized Kerr metric plus a pure gauge term. We work in a natural wave map DeTurck gauge and show that the pure gauge term can be taken to lie in a fixed 7-dimensional space with a simple geometric interpretation. Our proof rests on a robust general framework, based on recent advances in microlocal analysis and non-elliptic Fredholm theory, for the analysis of resolvents of operators on asymptotically flat spaces. With the mode stability of the Schwarzschild metric as well as of certain scalar and 1-form wave operators on the Schwarzschild spacetime as an input, we establish the linear stability of slowly rotating Kerr black holes using perturbative arguments; in particular, our proof does not make any use of special algebraic properties of the Kerr metric. The heart of the paper is a detailed description of the resolvent of the linearization of a suitable hyperbolic gauge-fixed Einstein operator at low energies. As in previous work by the second and third authors on the nonlinear stability of cosmological black holes, constraint damping plays an important role. Here, it eliminates certain pathological generalized zero energy states; it also ensures that solutions of our hyperbolic formulation of the linearized Einstein equation have the stated asymptotics and decay for general initial data and forcing terms, which is a useful feature in nonlinear and numerical applications.
In the algebraically more complicated but analytically less degenerate context of cosmological black holes, we recall that S 'a Barreto--Zworski @cite_113 studied the distribution of resonances of SdS black holes; exponential decay of linear scalar waves to constants was proved by Bony--H "afner @cite_36 and Melrose--S a Barreto--Vasy @cite_112 on SdS and by Dyatlov @cite_70 @cite_31 on KdS spacetimes, and substantially refined by Dyatlov @cite_73 to a full resonance expansion. (See @cite_56 for a physical space approach giving superpolynomial energy decay.) Tensor-valued and nonlinear equations on KdS spacetimes were studied in a series of works by Hintz--Vasy @cite_63 @cite_24 @cite_102 @cite_116 @cite_28 . For a physical space approach to resonances, see Warnick @cite_110 , and for the Maxwell equation on SdS spacetimes, see Keller @cite_66 .
@cite_36 @cite_70 @cite_28 @cite_112 @cite_102 @cite_113 @cite_56 @cite_24 @cite_116 @cite_63 @cite_110 @cite_31 @cite_73 @cite_66
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This paper contains the first two parts (I-II) of a three-part series concerning the scalar wave equation = 0 on a fixed Kerr background. We here restrict to two cases: (II1) |a| M, general or (II2) |a| < M, axisymmetric. In either case, we prove a version of 'integrated local energy decay', specifically, that the 4-integral of an energy-type density (degenerating in a neighborhood of the Schwarzschild photon sphere and at infinity), integrated over the domain of dependence of a spacelike hypersurface connecting the future event horizon with spacelike infinity or a sphere on null infinity, is bounded by a natural (non-degenerate) energy flux of through . (The case (II1) has in fact been treated previously in our Clay Lecture notes: Lectures on black holes and linear waves, arXiv:0811.0354.) In our forthcoming Part III, the restriction to axisymmetry for the general |a| < M case is removed. The complete proof is surveyed in our companion paper The black hole stability problem for linear scalar perturbations, which includes the essential details of our forthcoming Part III. Together with previous work (see our: A new physical-space approach to decay for the wave equation with applications to black hole spacetimes, in XVIth International Congress on Mathematical Physics, Pavel Exner ed., Prague 2009 pp. 421-433, 2009, arxiv:0910.4957), this result leads, under suitable assumptions on initial data of , to polynomial decay bounds for the energy flux of through the foliation of the black hole exterior defined by the time translates of a spacelike hypersurface terminating on null infinity, as well as to pointwise decay estimates, of a definitive form useful for nonlinear applications. These lecture notes, based on a course given at the Zurich Clay Summer School (June 23-July 18, 2008), review our current mathematical understanding of the global behaviour of waves on black hole exterior backgrounds. Interest in this problem stems from its relationship to the non-linear stability of the black hole spacetimes themselves as solutions to the Einstein equations, one of the central open problems of general relativity. After an introductory discussion of the Schwarzschild geometry and the black hole concept, the classical theorem of Kay and Wald on the boundedness of scalar waves on the exterior region of Schwarzschild is reviewed. The original proof is presented, followed by a new more robust proof of a stronger boundedness statement. The problem of decay of scalar waves on Schwarzschild is then addressed, and a theorem proving quantitative decay is stated and its proof sketched. This decay statement is carefully contrasted with the type of statements derived heuristically in the physics literature for the asymptotic tails of individual spherical harmonics. Following this, our recent proof of the boundedness of solutions to the wave equation on axisymmetric stationary backgrounds (including slowly-rotating Kerr and Kerr-Newman) is reviewed and a new decay result for slowly-rotating Kerr spacetimes is stated and proved. This last result was announced at the summer school and appears in print here for the first time. A discussion of the analogue of these problems for spacetimes with a positive cosmological constant follows. Finally, a general framework is given for capturing the red-shift effect for non-extremal black holes. This unifies and extends some of the analysis of the previous sections. The notes end with a collection of open problems. In this work, we consider solutions of the Maxwell equations on the Schwarzschild-de Sitter family of black hole spacetimes. We prove that, in the static region bounded by black hole and cosmological horizons, solutions of the Maxwell equations decay to stationary Coulomb solutions at a super-polynomial rate, with decay measured according to ingoing and outgoing null coordinates. Our method employs a differential transformation of Maxwell tensor components to obtain higher-order quantities satisfying a Fackerell-Ipser equation, in the style of Chandrasekhar and the more recent work of Pasqualotto. The analysis of the Fackerell-Ipser equation is accomplished by means of the vector field method, with decay estimates for the higher-order quantities leading to decay estimates for components of the Maxwell tensor. We consider solutions to the linear wave equation @math on a non-extremal maximally extended Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime arising from arbitrary smooth initial data prescribed on an arbitrary Cauchy hypersurface. (In particular, no symmetry is assumed on initial data, and the support of the solutions may contain the sphere of bifurcation of the black white hole horizons and the cosmological horizons.) We prove that in the region bounded by a set of black white hole horizons and cosmological horizons, solutions @math converge pointwise to a constant faster than any given polynomial rate, where the decay is measured with respect to natural future-directed advanced and retarded time coordinates. We also give such uniform decay bounds for the energy associated to the Killing field as well as for the energy measured by local observers crossing the event horizon. The results in particular include decay rates along the horizons themselves. Finally, we discuss the relation of these results to previous heuristic analysis of Price and