In mathematical analysis, a function of bounded variation, also known as BV function, is a real-valued function whose total variation is bounded (finite): the graph of a function having this property is well behaved in a precise sense. For a continuous function of a single variable, being of bounded variation means that the distance along the direction of the y-axis, neglecting the contribution of motion along x-axis, traveled by a point moving along the graph has a finite value. For a continuous function of several variables, the meaning of the definition is the same, except for the fact that the continuous path to be considered cannot be the whole graph of the given function (which is a hypersurface in this case), but can be every intersection of the graph itself with a hyperplane (in the case of functions of two variables, a plane) parallel to a fixed x-axis and to the y-axis.
Functions of bounded variation are precisely those with respect to which one may find Riemann–Stieltjes integrals of all continuous functions.
Another characterization states that the functions of bounded variation on a compact interval are exactly those f which can be written as a difference g − h, where both g and h are bounded monotone. In particular, a BV function may have discontinuities, but at most countably many.
In the case of several variables, a function f defined on an open subset Ω of is said to have bounded variation if its distributional derivative is a vector-valued finite Radon measure.
One of the most important aspects of functions of bounded variation is that they form an algebra of discontinuous functions whose first derivative exists almost everywhere: due to this fact, they can and frequently are used to define generalized solutions of nonlinear problems involving functionals, ordinary and partial differential equations in mathematics, physics and engineering.
We have the following chains of inclusions for continuous functions over a closed, bounded interval of the real line:
- Continuously differentiable ⊆ Lipschitz continuous ⊆ absolutely continuous ⊆ continuous and bounded variation ⊆ differentiable almost everywhere