Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
In this note we show the characteristic function of every indecomposable setF in theplane is BVequivalent to the characteristic function a closed set See Formula in PDF\hbox{See Formula in PDF} .We show by example this is false in dimension three and above. As a corollary to thisresult we show that for every ϵ > 0 a set of finite perimeter S can be approximated by aclosed subset See Formula in PDF\hbox{See Formula in PDF} with finitely many indecomposablecomponents and with the property that See Formula in PDF\hbox{See Formula in PDF} and See Formula in PDF\hbox{See Formula in PDF} .We apply this corollary to give a short proof that locally quasiminimizing sets in theplane are BVlextension domains.