For scalar total variation denoising with on a bounded Lipschitz domain in arbitrary dimension, the inequality holds with common oriented BV traces on a hypersurface. It says that every surviving jump has the same direction as its data jump and no larger amplitude. Reversing the normal changes both differences and preserves the inequality.
Use residual-preserving clipping of an ROF minimizer and the jump-amplitude inequality for a bounded ROF minimizer. At each finite jump, choose an integer clipping level above both output traces. The clipped function has those same traces, and its residual-adjusted data have the same traces as . Taking a countable union over the integer clipping levels proves the result. This gives the no-new-jumps property of total variation denoising under the full assumptions, without asserting regularity of unbounded-forcing perimeter minimizers.
The literal assumptions suffice for the scalar quadratic fidelity problem. One can avoid regularity of level-set boundaries by moving only a clipped part of the minimizer. We prove the stronger jump-amplitude inequality for total variation denoising:
Comparison with the zero function gives finite energy and hence . Here , and both differences use the same oriented BV traces on a hypersurface. Reversing the normal reverses both differences and leaves the inequality unchanged. Outside , the two traces of agree, so the inequality would read at a jump of . It therefore gives the requested no-new-jumps property of total variation denoising in every dimension.
First use residual-preserving clipping of an ROF minimizer. For an integer , put
The coarea formula for BV functions gives scalar total variation splitting under clipping:
Indeed the levels in contribute to , while the levels outside that interval contribute to . This uses the full signed coarea formula. For any , minimality of and the triangle inequality for the total variation seminorm give
Cancel the tail variation. Thus is a bounded ROF denoising minimizer for . The data may still be unbounded. This is an exact reduction preserving ; it does not truncate the data and then pass to a limit of different reconstructions.
We next prove the jump-amplitude inequality for a bounded ROF minimizer, allowing its data to be unbounded. Fix a coordinate , a nonnegative , and let be the local flow of the smooth vector field . The flow is the identity near the domain boundary, preserves each line parallel to , and satisfies . Write
These maps are diffeomorphisms, with and uniformly.
The useful trace calculation is the BV jump-product limit with one bounded factor. For and ,
The right side is integrable: and only the common jump part of contributes. The same limit holds with both increments replaced by their negative-time increments, still dividing by positive .
Here is why this calculation needs only one bounded factor. By the BV slicing theorem, almost every coordinate slice of and has one-sided representatives. On one such interval let and use its right-continuous representative. Since ,
Fubini's theorem rewrites the slice integral as
At each interior , the inner expression tends to ; if , it is zero. Its absolute value is at most . Dominated convergence against therefore leaves just the measure atoms common to the two slices. The bound is also integrable over the transverse coordinates, by the BV slicing theorem. Integrating the slice jump sums gives the surface integral and its factor . Negative-time increments give the same product, because both slice differences reverse sign. At no point is a uniform bound on across the slices required.
For , use the mixed competitors
The total variation under opposite smooth flows satisfies
To see this for the entire vector Radon measure , the change of variables formula gives
For , the two cofactor matrices expand as , with the same and opposite signs. Their norm expansions on have cancelling linear terms. Integrating proves the estimate, including the absolutely continuous, jump and Cantor parts. The BV transformation formula is also given in Lemma 4.2 on differentiable regularizers; that lemma does not assume bounded data. The total variation seminorm is a convex function, so
Thus minimality forces the sum of the two fidelity changes to have nonnegative limit after division by .
It remains to evaluate that sum without bounding . Put . Exact expansion of the quadratic fidelity, together with change of variables, gives the opposite-flow fidelity identity for quadratic data:
For completeness, the cross-term identity fixing its sign is
The last integral is : , while
Take first, then . Here and the local flow is strongly continuous in . The remaining Jacobian mass term is . This argument avoids multiplying an unbounded fidelity derivative by an uncontrolled derivative measure.
Apply the BV jump-product limit with one bounded factor with and , and use minimality. For every nonnegative and every coordinate ,
Let . These are inequalities for finite signed Radon measures, so arbitrary nonnegative smooth tests imply nonnegativity of their densities. Since at least one coordinate of a unit normal is nonzero,
This proves the bounded-minimizer lemma with arbitrary data.
Finally return to and . At almost every finite approximate jump point of , choose an integer . The BV traces on a hypersurface commute with clipping, so , and there. It is consequently a jump point of , and its inequality is exactly . A countable union over removes all exceptional surface-null sets. Outside , the BV traces on a hypersurface of agree almost everywhere. We conclude
The mechanism is exact scalar coarea splitting, paired smooth-flow variations, a one-bounded-factor BV trace limit, and localization through integer clipping levels. It works in every dimension under the printed hypotheses, without essential boundedness of or and without regularity of their level-set boundaries.
In total variation calibration notation, . Since this divergence is itself in the BV space, the proved inequality equivalently reads
Thus an upward output jump forces the appropriate nonpositive jump of the calibrated divergence. This is a consequence of the variational argument above, with common oriented BV traces on a hypersurface; no curvature of the rectifiable interface or differentiability of its normal is assumed.