Symmetry, Integrability and Geometry: Methods and Applications (SIGMA)

SIGMA 21 (2025), 054, 72 pages           https://doi.org/10.3842/SIGMA.2025.054

On Axially Symmetric Perturbations of Kerr Black Hole Spacetimes

Nishanth Gudapati
Department of Mathematics, College of the Holy Cross, 1 College Street, Worcester, MA-01610, USA

Received February 13, 2024, in final form June 17, 2025; Published online July 11, 2025

Abstract
The lack of a positive-definite and conserved energy is a serious obstacle in the black hole stability problem. In this work, we will show that there exists a positive-definite and conserved Hamiltonian energy for axially symmetric linear perturbations of the exterior of Kerr black hole spacetimes. In the first part, based on the Hamiltonian dimensional reduction of $3+1$ axially symmetric, Ricci-flat Lorentzian spacetimes to a ${2+1}$ Einstein-wave map system with the negatively curved hyperbolic 2-plane target, we construct a positive-definite, spacetime gauge-invariant energy functional for linear axially symmetric perturbations in the exterior of Kerr black holes, in a manner that is also gauge-independent on the target manifold. In the construction of the positive-definite energy, various dynamical terms at the boundary of the orbit space occur critically. In the second part, after setting up the initial value problem in harmonic coordinates, we prove that the positive energy for the axially symmetric linear perturbative theory of Kerr black holes is strictly conserved in time, by establishing that all the boundary terms dynamically vanish for all times. This result implies a form of dynamical linear stability of the exterior of Kerr black hole spacetimes.

Key words: Kerr black holes; black hole stability problem; ergo-region; Hamiltonian mechanics; wave maps; Poisson equation.

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