Quantitative unique continuation property for fourth-order Baouendi-Grushin type subelliptic operators with a potential

Abstract: We investigate the quantitative unique continuation property for solutions to $$Δ^2_{X} u = V u,$$ where $Δ{X} = Δ{x} + |x|^{2β} Δ{y}$ ($0 < β\leq 1$), with $x \in \mathbb{R}^{m}$ and $y \in \mathbb{R}^{n}$, denotes a class of subelliptic operators of Baouendi-Grushin type. The potential $V$ is assumed to be bounded and satisfy $|Z V| \leq K ψ$ for some constant $K>0$, where $Z= \sum{i=1}^m x_i \partial_{x_i} + (β+1)\sum_{j=1}^n y_j \partial_{y_j}$, $ψ$ is the angle function given by $ψ= \frac{|x|^{2β}}{ρ^{2β}}$, and $$ρ(x,y) = \left(|x|^{2(β+1)} + (β+1)^2 |y|^2\right)^{\frac{1}{2(β+1)}}$$ defines the associated pseudo-gauge. By adapting Almgren's approach, we establish an almost monotonicity formula for the frequency function. As a consequence, we derive a quantitative unique continuation result for solutions to the fourth-order subelliptic equation.