BV mollification error estimate 2026-10-07
For a nonnegative normalized mollifier supported in the radius- ball, integrate the BV translation estimate with weight . The full-space derivative variation controls the full-space error. Replacing it by variation on a smaller domain is invalid without a support condition: a nonconstant bump outside that domain has zero derivative measure inside but a nonzero mollification error.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 64 1 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Use a bounded BV extension operator for the bounded Lipschitz domain. Extend to , supported in one fixed compact set, with . Such an extension is obtained by reflection in Lipschitz boundary charts, a partition of unity and a fixed cutoff function. A naive zero extension must also charge its boundary-trace jump; it cannot discard that contribution.
Let bound these norms and let be their mollifications. The BV mollification error estimate givesThe variation measure here is on . The printed lemma's needs this correction unless it also assumes all the derivative mass lies in : a nonconstant bump supported outside disproves its literal wording. The correct estimate follows by averaging the BV translation estimate over a mollifier supported in .
For each fixed , convolution gives uniform boundsThe mollifications have common compact support and are uniformly equicontinuous. The Arzela-Ascoli theorem supplies a uniformly convergent subsequence at each scale . A diagonal subsequence converges at every one of those scales. For two late members of that subsequence,First choose large , then late ; the sequence is a Cauchy sequence in . Its limit belongs to the BV space because the total variation seminorm on a domain is sequentially lower semicontinuous. Uniform derivative bounds and integration by parts give . Restriction to proves the required weak-star convergence in BV.