Normally hyperbolic trapping on asymptotically stationary spacetimes

Abstract: We prove microlocal estimates at the trapped set of asymptotically Kerr spacetimes: these are spacetimes whose metrics decay inverse polynomially in time to a stationary subextremal Kerr metric. This combines two independent results. The first one is purely dynamical: we show that the stable and unstable manifolds of a decaying perturbation of a time-translation-invariant dynamical system with normally hyperbolic trapping are smooth and decay to their stationary counterparts. The second, independent, result provides microlocal estimates for operators whose null-bicharacteristic flow has a normally hyperbolic invariant manifold, under suitable non-degeneracy conditions on the stable and unstable manifolds; this includes operators on closed manifolds, as well as operators on spacetimes for which the invariant manifold lies at future infinity.