Stability and rigidity of axisymmetric marginally outer trapped two-spheres

Abstract

In [7], H. Bray, S. Brendle, and A. Neves studied rigidity properties of area-minimizing two-spheres in Riemannian three-manifolds with uniformly positive scalar curvature. In [13], these results were extended to marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTS) in general initial data sets $(M^3,g,K)$ under a natural energy condition. In the present work, we refine the latter results to the setting of axisymmetric MOTS in initial data sets admitting a nontrivial Killing vector field. Conditions for the stability of such MOTS, as well as a new foliation lemma by axisymmetric surfaces of constant outward null expansion, are obtained. Finally, we discuss some aspects of the rotating Nariai spacetimes and their relation to these results.