Non-uniformly elliptic variational problems on BV

We establish $\mathrm{W}^{1,1}$-regularity and higher gradient integrability for relaxed minimizers of convex integral functionals on $\mathrm{BV}$. Unlike classical examples such as the minimal surface integrand, we only require linear growth from below but not necessarily from above. This typically comes with a non-uniformly degenerate elliptic behaviour, for which our results extend the presently available bounds from the superlinear growth case in a sharp way.