On the gradient flow of a one-homogeneous functional

Abstract

We consider the gradient flow of a one-homogeneous functional, whose dual involves the derivative of a constrained scalar function. We show in this case that the gradient flow is related to a weak, generalized formulation of a Hele–Shaw flow. The equivalence follows from a variational representation, which is a variant of well-known variational representations for the Hele–Shaw problem. As a consequence we get existence and uniqueness of a weak solution to the Hele–Shaw flow. We also obtain an explicit representation for the Total Variation flow in dimension 1, and easily deduce basic qualitative properties, concerning in particular the "staircasing effect".