Dispersive equations on asymptotically conical manifolds: time decay in the low-frequency regime

On an asymptotically conical manifold, we prove time decay estimates for the flow of the Schrödinger wave and Klein–Gordon equations via some differentiability properties of the spectral measure. To keep the paper at a reasonable length, we limit ourselves to the low-energy part of the spectrum, which is the one that dictates the decay rates. With this paper, we extend sharp estimates that are known in the asymptotically flat case (see Bouclet and Burq in Duke Math J 170(11):2575–2629, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1215/00127094-2020-0080) to this more general geometric framework and therefore recover the same decay properties as in the Euclidean case. The first step is to prove some resolvent estimates via a limiting absorption principle. It is at this stage that the proof of the previously mentioned authors fails, in particular when we try to recover a low-frequency positive commutator estimate. Once the resolvent estimates are established, we derive regularity for the spectral measure that in turn is applied to obtain the decay of the flows.