A property of measures in \(\mathbb{R}{}^ N\) and an application to unique continuation (Q1200025): Difference between revisions

The ``unique continuation'' result proved in the paper is the following: Theorem. Let \(\Omega\) be a domain in \(\mathbb{R}^ n\) (\(n\geq 3\)), let \(p\geq 2n/(2+n)\), and let \(u\in W^{2,p}_{\text{loc}}(\Omega)\) be such that \(| \Delta u|\leq A| u|+ B| Du|\) on \(\Omega\) for some \(A\in L^{n/2}_{\text{loc}}(\Omega)\) and \(B\in L^ n_{\text{loc}}(\Omega)\). Then, if \(u\) vanishes on an open set, it vanishes identically. Other similar results concerning unique continuation properties for differential forms on manifolds, and for elliptic operators with variable coefficients are also proved. The main tool used in the proof is the following lemma on measures. Lemma. Let \(\mu\) be a positive measure on \(\mathbb{R}^ n\) such that \[ \lim_{t\to+\infty} {{\log \mu(\{| x|\geq t\})} \over t} =- \infty, \] and for every \(z\in\mathbb{R}^ n\) define the measure \(\mu_ z=e^{zx}\mu\). Then for every \(z\in\mathbb{R}^ n\) there exists a compact convex set \(E_ z\) such that \[ \mu_ z(\mathbb{R}^ n \setminus(1+t) E_ z)\leq {\textstyle {1\over 2}} e^{-t/C} \| \mu_ z\| \qquad \forall t\geq 0 \] where \(C\) depends only on \(n\) and the homothetic set \((1+t)E_ z\) is made with the barycenter of \(E_ z\). Moreover, for every compact convex \(K\subset\mathbb{R}^ n\) there exists a sequence \((z_ h)\) in \(K\) such that \(E_{z_ h}\) are pairwise disjoint and \(| K|\leq C \sum^ \infty_{h=1} 1/| E_{z_ h}|\).