Some remarks on strong unique continuation for the laplace operator and its powers (Q4247960)

Consider the differential inequality \[ | \Delta^h u(x)| \leq | W_0(x)| | u(x)| +| W_1(x)| | \nabla u(x)| +\cdots+| W_h(x)| | \nabla^hu(x)| \] in a neighbourhood of the origin in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) for some \(h\in \mathbb{N}\). Recall that a \(C^\infty\) function is said to be flat at the origin if \(D^\alpha(0)=0\) for any \(\alpha\in\mathbb{N}^n\). The problem investigated is the following: if a flat function satisfies the inequality in above, is it necessarily identically zero? Of course, the answer depends on the behaviour of \(W_i(x)\) near the origin. As a first result, the authors prove that the answer is affirmative if \[ | \Delta^h u(x)| ^2 \leq \gamma_0/| x| ^{4h}| u| ^2 +\gamma_1/| x| ^{4h-2}| \nabla u| ^2+\cdots+ \gamma_h/| x| ^{2h}\sum_{| \alpha| =h} h!/\alpha ! | D^\alpha u| ^2 \] with \(\gamma_i\) positive constants and \(\gamma_h<((2h-1)!)^2/2^h.\) Moreover, they prove a similar result for the inequality \[ | r^2\Delta u(x)| ^2\leq C_n^2 | u(x)| ^2+\sum_{j=1}^n| \Omega_ju(x)| ^2 \] where \(C_n=(n-2)/2\), \(r=| x| \) and \(\Omega_jr=0\). Finally, they obtain the corresponding result for the inequality \(| \Delta u(x)| \leq 1/(\sqrt 2 | x|)| \nabla u(x)| \) with \(n\geq 3\).