Equivariant Morse-Bott cohomology through stabilization

For closed manifolds with compact Lie group actions, we study Austin-Braam’s Morse-theoretic construction of Borel equivariant cohomology using the technique of stabilization. We show that a $C^1$-small equivariant perturbation produces stable invariant Morse-Bott functions. This allows us to realize the equivariant transversality and orientability assumptions in Austin-Braam’s framework by choosing generic invariant Riemannian metrics.