Generalized bounded deformation in non-Euclidean settings

Abstract: We introduce a new space of generalized functions of bounded deformation $GBD_{F}$, made of functions u whose one-dimensional slice $u(\gamma) \cdot \dot{\gamma}$ has bounded variation in a generalized sense for all curves $\gamma$ solution of the second order ODE $\ddot{\gamma} = F(\gamma, \dot{\gamma})$ for a fixed field F. For $u \in GBD_{F}$ we study the structure of the jump set in connection its slices and prove the existence of a curvilinear approximate symmetric gradient. With a particular choice of F in terms of the Christoffel symbols of a Riemannian manifold M, we are able to define and recover similar properties for a space of 1-forms on M which have generalized bounded deformation in a suitable sense.