Regularity of gradient vector fields giving rise to finite Caccioppoli partitions (Q2159515)

In this paper, the author proves two central results concerning continuous functions \(u\colon \mathbb{R}^n \to R\) with weak gradient \(\nabla u\) satisfying \(\nabla u \in BV_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb{R}^n;\mathbb{R}^n)\) and \(\nabla u(x) \in A\) for almost every \(x \in \mathbb{R}^n\), where \(BV_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb{R}^n; \mathbb{R}^n)\) represents the space of all locally integrable functions \(u\colon \mathbb{R}^n \to R\) that have a weak gradient and \(A \subset \mathbb{R}^n\) is a finite set, such functions naturally show up in variational problems arising from materials science. The space of functions with weak gradient in \(BV_{\mathrm{loc}} (\mathbb{R}^n;\mathbb{R}^n)\) is denoted by \(BV^2_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb{R}^n)\). By assuming certain conditions on \(A\), namely convex independency and affinely independency, where a set \(A \subset \mathbb{R}^n\) is called convex independent if any \(a \in A\) does not belong to the convex hull of \(A\backslash\{a\}\) and it is called affinely independent if any \(a \in A\) does not belong to the affine span of \(A\backslash\{a\}\). The results concern the singular set, \(S(u)\), of \(u \in BV^2_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb{R}^n)\). In both statements \(\mathcal{H}^s\) stands for the \(s\)-dimensional Hausforff measure they read: First Theorem. Suppose that \(A\) is a finite, affinely independent set. Let \(u \in BV^2_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb{R}^n)\) with \(\nabla u(x) \in A\) for almost every \(x \in \mathbb{R}^n\). Then \(\mathcal{H}^{n-1}(S(u)) = 0\). Second Theorem. Suppose that \(A\) is a finite, convex independent set. Let \(u \in BV^2_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb{R}^n)\) with \(\nabla u(x) \in A\) for almost every \(x \in \mathbb{R}^n\). Then \(S(u)\) is countably \(\mathcal{H}^{n-1}\)-rectifiable. In special case \(n=2\), the first result had already been proved in an author's previous paper, see [\textit{R. Moser}, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 116, No. 4, 813--846 (2018; Zbl 1392.49043)]. The other result is new for any dimension. The author extends some of his techniques, introduced in the quoted previous paper, to the more general context handled in the paper under review. By considering at first specific cases he ingeniously proves several auxiliary results, that lead to the proofs of the two stated theorems.