Local calibrations for minimizers of the Mumford-Shah functional with a regular discontinuity set. (Q5945800)

This paper is concerned with local minimizers of the Mumford-Shah functional \[ u\mapsto \int_\Omega | \nabla u(x,y)| ^2\,dx\,dy+{\mathcal H}^1(S_u), \] where \(\Omega\subset {\mathbb R}^2\) is a bounded open set, \({\mathcal H}^1\) is the Hausdorff 1-dimensional measure and \(S_u\) is the (approximate) discontinuity set of \(u\). Due to the non-convex character of the functional, arising from the presence of the surface area penalization \({\mathcal H}^1(S_u)\), there is a gap between necessary first order minimality conditions and sufficient ones. Following the calibration method introduced by Alberti, Bouchitté and Dal Maso, the authors show some results that fill, in part, this gap. In particular they show that the validity of Euler's equation implies minimality of the function \(u\) among all those coinciding with \(u\) out of a sufficiently small neighbourhood of \(S_u\). Another local minimality property considered in the paper, arising very naturally in this context, takes into account competing functions \(v\) whose extended graph (i.e., including the vertical segments due to jumps) is contained in a neighbourhood of the extended graph of \(u\).