Abstract : I will describe joint work with Dietrich Häfner and Andràs Vasy in which we study the asymptotic behavior of linearized gravitational perturbations of Schwarzschild or slowly rotating Kerr black hole spacetimes. We show that solutions of the linearized Einstein equation decay at an inverse polynomial rate to a stationary solution (given by an infinitesimal variation of the mass and angular momentum of the black hole), plus a pure gauge term. Our proof uses a detailed description of the resolvent of an associated wave equation on symmetric 2-tensors near zero energy.

Keywords : Einstein equation; linear stability; gravitation