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

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 \([0,1]\).