Decay of waves in gravitational solitons

15.12.2022, 14:15-15:45  –  2.22 und Zoom
Geometric Analysis, Differential Geometry and Relativity

Sharmila Gunasekarans

Gravitational solitons are globally stationary, horizonless asymptotically flat spacetimes with positive energy. I will address the stability of a particular family of solitons at the simplest level by investigating solutions to the linear wave equation. I will describe a methodology to prove that massless scalar waves in this family of soliton spacetimes cannot decay faster than inverse logarithmically in time. This slow decay can be attributed to the stable trapping of null geodesics and is suggestive of instability at the nonlinear level. This is joint work with Hari Kunduri.

This talk is part of the seminar Geometric Analysis, Differential Geometry and Relativity organized by Carla Cederbaum (Uni Tübingen), Melanie Graf (Uni Tübingen), and Jan Metzger (Uni Potsdam) . To obtain the Zoom data please contact jan.metzger@uni-potsdam.de