Free-discontinuity problems via functionals involving the \(L^1\)-norm of the gradient and their approximations (Q1301853): Difference between revisions

Motivated by problems in image analysis and fracture mechanics, the authors study in the paper the variational approximation, in the sense of \(\Gamma\)-convergence, of functionals in \(\text{BV}(\Omega)\) of the form \[ \int_\Omega |\nabla u|dx+\int_{S_u}g(|u^+-u^-|) d{\mathcal H}^{n-1}+ |D^cu|(\Omega) \] where \(\nabla u\) is the approximate differential, \(S_u\) and \(|u^+-u^-|\) are, respectively, the approximate jump set and the width of the jump and \(D^c u\) is the Cantor part of derivative. The approximation is based on a variant of the original Ambrosio-Tortorelli construction (introduced for the approximation of the Mumford-Shah functional), introducing the auxiliary variable \(v\), defining \[ G_\varepsilon(u,v)=\int_\Omega \psi(v)|\nabla u|+\tfrac 1\varepsilon W(v)+ \varepsilon|\nabla v|^2 dx \] and letting \(\varepsilon\to 0^+\). It turns out that \(g(z)=\min\bigl\{z\psi(t)+2\int_t^1\sqrt{W}(s) ds\bigr\}\), with \(t\) ranging in \([0,1]\).