Density theorems for local minimizers of area-type functionals (Q1177667)

The authors consider a class of functionals defined on \(BV(\Omega,T)\), i.e. the class of the functions \(u\) of the type \(u=\sum_ j t_ j\phi_{u_ j}\), where \(T=\{t_ j\}\) is a prescribed finite set of real numbers and \(\{U_ j\}\) is a finite partition of the open set \(\Omega\subset{\mathbf R}^ n\) by sets of finite perimeter. The variational problems studied in the paper take into account a surface term \(\mathcal F\) controlled by the \((n-1)\)-dimensional Hausdorff measure of the discontinuity set of \(u\) and a perturbation term controlled by the \(L^{n\over n-1}\) norm. Such kind of functionals arise, for instance, from the image segmentation problem in computer vision theory. The discontinuity set \(S_ u\) is defined in the measure theoretic sense, in order to use semicontinuity and compactness properties in the space \(BV(\Omega,T)\), so that it is not, in general, a closed set. The authors prove that for a local minimizer \(u\) the set \(S_ u\) is closed and for every \(x\in S_ u\) the \((n-1)\)-dimensional density of \(S_ u\) at \(x\) is greater than a positive constant, depending only on the structural assumptions on \(\mathcal F\), \(T\) and on the perturbation term.