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We establish a quasi-monotonicity formula {for an intrinsic frequency function related to solutions to} thin obstacle problems with zero obstacle driven by quadratic energies with Sobolev $W^{1,p}$ coefficients, with $p$ bigger than the space dimension. From this we deduce several regularity and structural properties of the corresponding free boundaries at those distinguished points with finite order of contact with the obstacle. In particular, we prove the rectifiability {and the local finiteness of the Minkowski content} of the whole free boundary in the case of Lipschitz coefficients.

We prove an approximation result for functions $u\in SBV(\Omega;\mathbb R^m)$ such that $\nabla u$ is $p$-integrable, $1\leq p<\infty$, and $g_0(|[u]|)$ is integrable over the jump set (whose $\mathcal H^{n-1}$ measure is possibly infinite), for some continuous, nondecreasing, subadditive function $g_0$, with $g_0^{-1}(0)=\{0\}$. The approximating functions $u_j$ are piecewise affine with piecewise affine jump set; the convergence is that of $L^1$ for $u_j$ and the convergence in energy for $|\nabla u_j|^p$ and $g([u_j],\nu_{u_j})$ for suitable functions $g$. In particular, $u_j$ converges to $u$ $BV$-strictly, area-strictly, and strongly in $BV$ after composition with a bilipschitz map. If in addition $\mathcal H^{n-1}(J_u)<\infty$, we also have convergence of $\mathcal H^{n-1}(J_{u_j})$ to $\mathcal H^{n-1}(J_u)$.

The aim of these notes is to give a complete self-contained account of the current state of the art in the regularity for planar minimizers and critical points of the Mumford-Shah functional.

We consider a family of vectorial models for cohesive fracture, which may incorporate $\mathrm{SO}(n)$-invariance. The deformation belongs to the space of generalized functions of bounded variation and the energy contains an (elastic) volume energy, an opening-dependent jump energy concentrated on the fractured surface, and a Cantor part representing diffuse damage. We show that this type of functional can be naturally obtained as $\Gamma$-limit of an appropriate phase-field model. The energy densities entering the limiting functional can be expressed, in a partially implicit way, in terms of those appearing in the phase-field approximation.

Weiss' and Monneau's type quasi-monotonicity formulas are established for quadratic energies having matrix of coefficients which are Dini, double-Dini continuity, respectively. Free boundary regularity for the corresponding classical obstacle problems under H\"older continuity assumptions is then deduced.

We provide a variational approximation of Ambrosio-Tortorelli type for brittle fracture energies of piecewise-rigid solids. Our result covers both the case of geometrically nonlinear elasticity and that of linearised elasticity.

We give an alternative proof of the regularity, up to the loose end, of minimizers, resp. critical points of the Mumford-Shah functional when they are sufficiently close to the cracktip, resp. they consist of a single arc terminating at an interior point., Comment: 27 pages. v3: corrected typos, added proof of (8.1), corrected acknowledgements. To appear in Journal de Math\'ematiques Pures et Appliqu\'ees. For Errata see https://www.math.ias.edu/delellis/sites/math.ias.edu.delellis/files/Errata-crackip.pdf

Following the global method for relaxation we prove an integral representation result for a large class of variational functionals naturally defined on the space of functions with Bounded Deformation. Mild additional continuity assumptions are required on the functionals., Comment: The new version contains an entire new section where an homogenization Theorem for bulk energies in BD is proven

Building upon the recent results in \cite{FoSp17} we provide a thorough description of the free boundary for the fractional obstacle problem in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ with obstacle function $\varphi$ (suitably smooth and decaying fast at infinity) up to sets of null $\mathcal{H}^{n-1}$ measure. In particular, if $\varphi$ is analytic, the problem reduces to the zero obstacle case dealt with in \cite{FoSp17} and therefore we retrieve the same results: (i) local finiteness of the $(n-1)$-dimensional Minkowski content of the free boundary (and thus of its Hausdorff measure), (ii) $\mathcal{H}^{n-1}$-rectifiability of the free boundary, (iii) classification of the frequencies and of the blow-ups up to a set of Hausdorff dimension at most $(n-2)$ in the free boundary. Instead, if $\varphi\in C^{k+1}(\mathbb{R}^n)$, $k\geq 2$, similar results hold only for a distinguished subset of points in the free boundary where the order of contact of the solution and the obstacle is less than $k+1$.

We establish Weiss' and Monneau's type quasi-monotonicity formulas for quadratic energies having matrix of coefficients in a Sobolev space $W^{1,p}$, $p>n$, and provide an application to the corresponding free boundary analysis for the related classical obstacle problems.

We prove partial regularity for minimizers to elasticity type energies in the nonlinear framework {with $p$-growth, $p>1$,} in dimension $n\geq 3$. It is an open problem in such a setting either to establish full regularity or to provide counterexamples. In particular, we give an estimate on the Hausdorff dimension of the potential singular set by proving that is strictly less than {$n-(p^*\wedge 2)$, and actually $n-2$ in the autonomous case} (full regularity is well-known in dimension $2$). The latter result is instrumental to establish existence for the strong formulation of Griffith type models in brittle fracture with nonlinear constitutive relations, accounting for damage and plasticity in space dimensions $2$ and $3$.

We prove optimal regularity and a detailed analysis of the free boundary of the solutions to the thin obstacle problem for nonparametric minimal surfaces with flat obstacles.

The modeling of fracture problems within geometrically linear elasticity is often based on the space of generalized functions of bounded deformation $GSBD^p(\Omega)$, $p\in(1,\infty)$, their treatment is however hindered by the very low regularity of those functions and by the lack of appropriate density results. We construct here an approximation of $GSBD^p$ functions, for $p\in(1,\infty)$, with functions which are Lipschitz continuous away from a jump set which is a finite union of closed subsets of $C^1$ hypersurfaces. The strains of the approximating functions converge strongly in $L^p$ to the strain of the target, and the area of their jump sets converge to the area of the target. The key idea is to use piecewise affine functions on a suitable grid, which is obtained via the Freudhental partition of a cubic grid.

We provide a thorough description of the free boundary for the lower dimensional obstacle problem in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ up to sets of null $\mathcal{H}^{n-1}$ measure. In particular, we prove (i) local finiteness of the $(n-1)$-dimensional Hausdorff measure of the free boundary, (ii) $\mathcal{H}^{n-1}$-rectifiability of the free boundary, (iii) classification of the frequencies up to a set of dimension at most (n-2) and classification of the blow-ups at $\mathcal{H}^{n-1}$ almost every free boundary point.

We consider the Griffith fracture model in two spatial dimensions, and prove existence of strong minimizers, with closed jump set and continuously differentiable deformation fields. One key ingredient, which is the object of the present paper, is a generalization of the decay estimate by De Giorgi, Carriero, and Leaci to the vectorial situation. This is based on replacing the coarea formula by a method to approximate $SBD^p$ functions with small jump set by Sobolev functions and is restricted to two dimensions. The other two ingredients are contained in companion papers and consist respectively in regularity results for vectorial elliptic problems of the elasticity type and in a method to approximate in energy $GSBD^p$ functions by $SBV^p$ ones.

We develop the complete free boundary analysis for solutions to classical obstacle problems related to nondegenerate nonlinear variational energies. The key tools are optimal $C^{1,1}$ regularity, which we review more generally for solutions to variational inequalities driven by nonlinear coercive smooth vector fields, and the results in \cite{FocGelSp15} concerning the obstacle problem for quadratic energies with Lipschitz coefficients. Furthermore, we highlight similar conclusions for locally coercive vector fields having in mind applications to the area functional, or more generally to area-type functionals, as well.

We review some classical results and more recent insights about the regularity theory for local minimizers of the Mumford and Shah energy and their connections with the Mumford and Shah conjecture. We discuss in details the links among the latter, the porosity of the jump set and the higher integrability of the approximate gradient. In particular, higher integrability turns out to be related with an explicit estimate on the Hausdorff dimension of the singular set and an energetic characterization of the conjecture itself.

We consider the variational formulation of the Griffith fracture model in two spatial dimensions and prove existence of strong minimizers, that is deformation fields which are continuously differentiable outside a closed jump set and which minimize the relevant energy. To this aim, we show that minimizers of the weak formulation of the problem, set in the function space $SBD^2$ and for which existence is well-known, are actually strong minimizers following the approach developed by De Giorgi, Carriero, and Leaci in the corresponding scalar setting of the Mumford-Shah problem.

We prove an integral representation result for functionals with growth conditions which give coercivity on the space $SBD^p(\Omega)$, for $\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^2$. The space $SBD^p$ of functions whose distributional strain is the sum of an $L^p$ part and a bounded measure supported on a set of finite $\mathcal{H}^{1}$-dimensional measure appears naturally in the study of fracture and damage models. Our result is based on the construction of a local approximation by $W^{1,p}$ functions. We also obtain a generalization of Korn's inequality in the $SBD^p$ setting.

Functions of bounded deformation ($BD$) arise naturally in the study of fracture and damage in a geometrically linear context. They are related to functions of bounded variation ($BV$), but are less well understood. We discuss here the relation to $BV$ under additional regularity assumptions, which may require the regular part of the strain to have higher integrability or the jump set to have finite area or the Cantor part to vanish. On the positive side, we prove that $BD$ functions which are piecewise affine on a Caccioppoli partition are in $GSBV$, and we prove that $SBD^p$ functions are approximately continuous ${\mathcal{H}}^{n-1}$-a.e. away from the jump set. On the negative side, we construct a function which is $BD$ but not in $BV$ and has distributional strain consisting only of a jump part, and one which has a distributional strain consisting of only a Cantor part.

We prove an epiperimetric inequality for the thin obstacle problem, extending the pioneering results by Weiss on the classical obstacle problem (Invent. Math. 138 (1999), no. 1, 23-50). This inequality provides the means to study the rate of converge of the rescaled solutions to their limits, as well as the regularity properties of the free boundary.

We prove an $\varepsilon$-regularity theorem at the endpoint of connected arcs for $2$-dimensional Mumford-Shah minimizers. In particular we show that, if in a given ball $B_r (x)$ the jump set of a given Mumford-Shah minimizer is sufficiently close, in the Hausdorff distance, to a radius of $B_r (x)$, then in a smaller ball the jump set is a connected arc which terminates at some interior point $y_0$ and it is $C^{1,\alpha}$ up to $y_0$., Comment: This paper has been withdrawn by the authors due to a sign error in the last equation of system (2.11). In turn, this implies a change of sign of the last equation in the linearized system (3.1) as well. The linear three annuli property for solutions to the new system (3.1) is no longer valid

In this note we prove an abstract version of a recent quantitative stratifcation priciple introduced by Cheeger and Naber (Invent. Math., 191 (2013), no. 2, 321-339; Comm. Pure Appl. Math., 66 (2013), no. 6, 965-990). Using this general regularity result paired with an $\varepsilon$-regularity theorem we provide a new estimate of the Minkowski dimension of the set of higher multiplicity points of a Dir-minimizing Q-valued function. The abstract priciple is applicable to several other problems: we recover recent results in the literature and we obtain also some improvements in more classical contexts., Comment: modified title; minor changes

We obtain a cohesive fracture model as a $\Gamma$-limit of scalar damage models in which the elastic coefficient is computed from the damage variable $v$ through a function $f_k$ of the form $f_k(v)=min\{1,\varepsilon_k^{1/2} f(v)\}$, with $f$ diverging for $v$ close to the value describing undamaged material. The resulting fracture energy can be determined by solving a one-dimensional vectorial optimal profile problem. It is linear in the opening $s$ at small values of $s$ and has a finite limit as $s\to\infty$. If the function $f$ is allowed to depend on the index $k$, for specific choices we recover in the limit Dugdale's and Griffith's fracture models, and models with surface energy density having a power-law growth at small openings.

We give a more elementary proof of a result by Ambrosio, Fusco and Hutchinson to estimate the Hausdorff dimension of the singular set of minimizers of the Mumford-Shah energy (see [2, Theorem 5.6]). On the one hand, we follow the strategy of the above mentioned paper; but on the other hand our analysis greatly simplifies the argument since it relies on the compactness result proved by the first two Authors in [4, Theorem 13] for sequences of local minimizers with vanishing gradient energy, and the regularity theory of minimal Caccioppoli partitions, rather than on the corresponding results for Almgren's area minimizing sets.

We prove quasi-monotonicity formulas for classical obstacle-type problems with energies being the sum of a quadratic form with Lipschitz coefficients, and a H\"older continuous linear term. With the help of those formulas we are able to carry out the full analysis of the regularity of free-boundary points following the approaches by Caffarelli, Weiss and Monneau.

We consider general integral functionals on the Sobolev spaces of multiple valued functions, introduced by Almgren. We characterize the semicontinuous ones and recover earlier results of Mattila as a particular case. Moreover, we answer positively to one of the questions raised by Mattila in the same paper., Comment: 19 pages; [v2] minor changes for publication

We determine the asymptotic behaviour of (bilateral) obstacle problems for fractional energies in rather general aperiodic settings via Gamma-convergence arguments. As further developments we consider obstacles with random sizes and shapes located on points of standard lattices, and the case of random homothetics obstacles centered on random Delone sets of points. Obstacle problems for non-local energies occur in several physical phenomenona, for which our results provide a description of the first order asympotitc behaviour.

For the linearized setting of the dynamics of complex bodies we construct variational integrators and prove their convergence by making use of BV estimates on the rate fields. We allow for peculiar substructural inertia and internal dissipation, all accounted for by a d'Alembert-Lagrange-type principle., Comment: 23 pages, in print on Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems B