Paper detail

Median values, 1-harmonic functions, and functions of least gradient

Motivated by the mean value property of harmonic functions, we introduce the local and global median value properties for continuous functions of two variables. We show that the Dirichlet problem associated with the local median value property is either easy or impossible to solve, and we prove that continuous functions with this property are 1-harmonic in the viscosity sense. We then close with the following conjecture: a continuous function having the global median value property and prescribed boundary values coincides with the function of least gradient having those same boundary values.