Total variation flow of curves in Riemannian manifolds

Abstract: We consider the functional of total variation of maps from an interval into a Riemannian submanifold of $\mathbb R^N$. We define a notion of strong solution to the system of equations corresponding to the $L^2$-gradient flow of this functional. We prove global existence of strong solutions for initial data of bounded variation. We show that the solutions satisfy a variational equality, and deduce uniqueness in the case of non-positive sectional curvature. We prove convergence of strong solutions to a constant map in finite time.