Strong uniqueness for second order differential operators (Q1377518)

The authors consider an elliptic differential operator \[ P(x,D)=\sum_{j,k=1}^n a_{j,k}(x)D_jD_k \quad \text{ in}\quad\Omega \] such that \(a_{jk}(0)\) is real and \(a_{jk}\) is Lipschitz continuous in \(\Omega\) (a connected open subset of \(\mathbb{R}^N\)). The main result in the present work is the following one: There exists a positive constant \(C^*\) depending only on \(P(x,D)\) such that if \(u\in H^1_{\text{loc}}(\Omega)\) is a solution of \[ |P(x,D)u|\leq C_1|x|^{-2} |u|+C_2|x|^{-1}|\nabla u| \] with \(C_2<C^*\) and \(\int_{|x|<R} |x|^2dx=O(R)\) for all \(N>0\), when \(R\rightarrow 0\), then \(u\) is identically zero in \(\Omega\). The proof is based on Carleman's method.