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.
We use a Lagrangian regularity perspective to discuss resolvent estimates near zero energy on Riemannian scattering, i.e. asymptotically conic, spaces, and their generalizations. In addition to the Lagrangian perspective we introduce and use a resolv
ed pseudodifferential algebra to deal with zero energy degeneracies in a robust manner.
We use a Lagrangian perspective to show the limiting absorption principle on Riemannian scattering, i.e. asymptotically conic, spaces, and their generalizations. More precisely we show that, for non-zero spectral parameter, the `on spectrum, as well
as the `off-spectrum, spectral family is Fredholm in function spaces which encode the Lagrangian regularity of generalizations of `outgoing spherical waves of scattering theory, and indeed this persists in the `physical half plane.
We study the isotropic elastic wave equation in a bounded domain with boundary with coefficients having jumps at a nested set of interfaces satisfying the natural transmission conditions there. We analyze in detail the microlocal behavior of such sol
ution like reflection, transmission and mode conversion of S and P waves, evanescent modes, Rayleigh and Stoneley waves. In particular, we recover Knotts equations in this setting. We show that knowledge of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map determines uniquely the speed of the P and the S waves if there is a strictly convex foliation with respect to them, under an additional condition of lack of full internal reflection of some of the waves.
In this paper we show that in anisotropic elasticity, in the particular case of transversely isotropic media, under appropriate convexity conditions, knowledge of the qSH wave travel times determines the tilt of the axis of isotropy as well as some o
f the elastic material parameters, and the knowledge of qP and qSV travel times conditionally determines a subset of the remaining parameters, in the sense if some of the remaining parameters are known, the rest are determined, or if the remaining parameters satisfy a suitable relation, they are all determined, under certain non-degeneracy conditions. Furthermore, we give a precise description of the additional issues, which are a subject of ongoing work, that need to be resolved for a full treatment.
We study the nonlinear stability of the $(3+1)$-dimensional Minkowski spacetime as a solution of the Einstein vacuum equation. Similarly to our previous work on the stability of cosmological black holes, we construct the solution of the nonlinear ini
tial value problem using an iteration scheme in which we solve a linearized equation globally at each step; we use a generalized harmonic gauge and implement constraint damping to fix the geometry of null infinity. The linear analysis is largely based on energy and vector field methods originating in work by Klainerman. The weak null condition of Lindblad and Rodnianski arises naturally as a nilpotent coupling of certain metric components in a linear model operator at null infinity. Upon compactifying $mathbb{R}^4$ to a manifold with corners, with boundary hypersurfaces corresponding to spacelike, null, and timelike infinity, we show, using the framework of Melroses b-analysis, that polyhomogeneous initial data produce a polyhomogeneous spacetime metric. Finally, we relate the Bondi mass to a logarithmic term in the expansion of the metric at null infinity and prove the Bondi mass loss formula.
We study the isotropic elastic wave equation in a bounded domain with boundary. We show that local knowledge of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map determines uniquely the speed of the p-wave locally if there is a strictly convex foliation with respect to it, and similarly for the s-wave speed.
In this paper we analyze the local and global boundary rigidity problem for general Riemannian manifolds with boundary $(M,g)$. We show that the boundary distance function, i.e., $d_g|_{partial Mtimespartial M}$, known near a point $pin partial M$ at
which $partial M$ is strictly convex, determines $g$ in a suitable neighborhood of $p$ in $M$, up to the natural diffeomorphism invariance of the problem. We also consider the closely related lens rigidity problem which is a more natural formulation if the boundary distance is not realized by unique minimizing geodesics. The lens relation measures the point and the direction of exit from $M$ of geodesics issued from the boundary and the length of the geodesic. The lens rigidity problem is whether we can determine the metric up to isometry from the lens relation. We solve the lens rigidity problem under the assumption that there is a function on $M$ with suitable convexity properties relative to $g$. This can be considered as a complete solution of a problem formulated first by Herglotz in 1905. We also prove a semi-global results given semi-global data. This shows, for instance, that simply connected manifolds with strictly convex boundaries are lens rigid if the sectional curvature is non-positive or non-negative or if there are no focal points. The key tool is the analysis of the geodesic X-ray transform on 2-tensors, corresponding to a metric $g$, in the normal gauge, such as normal coordinates relative to a hypersurface, where one also needs to allow weights. This is handled by refining and extending our earlier results in the solenoidal gauge.
We show the existence of the full compound asymptotics of solutions to the scalar wave equation on long-range non-trapping Lorentzian manifolds modeled on the radial compactification of Minkowski space. In particular, we show that there is a joint as
ymptotic expansion at null and timelike infinity for forward solutions of the inhomogeneous equation. In two appendices we show how these results apply to certain spacetimes whose null infinity is modeled on that of the Kerr family. In these cases the leading order logarithmic term in our asymptotic expansions at null infinity is shown to be nonzero.
We show that linear scalar waves are bounded and continuous up to the Cauchy horizon of Reissner-Nordstrom-de Sitter and Kerr-de Sitter spacetimes, and in fact decay exponentially fast to a constant along the Cauchy horizon. We obtain our results by
modifying the spacetime beyond the Cauchy horizon in a suitable manner, which puts the wave equation into a framework in which a number of standard as well as more recent microlocal regularity and scattering theory results apply. In particular, the conormal regularity of waves at the Cauchy horizon - which yields the boundedness statement - is a consequence of radial point estimates, which are microlocal manifestations of the blue-shift and red-shift effects.
