On the Spectral Function of Some Higher Order Elliptic or Degenerate-elliptic Operators

^m σ/|α|=|β|=m D^α(a _αβD^β) is a higher order degenerate-elliptic operator on L²(R^N) and V ∈ L¹(R^N) we show in particular that s(λ) > 0 for all λ > 0 provided that ∫_RN V(x)dx≥ 0, V not equivalent to 0 and N ≤ 2m.