A functional equation for the cosine on semigroups with endomorphisms (Q6148909)

Let \(S\) be a semigroup and \(\mathbb{F}\) a quadratically closed field of characteristic different from 2. Assume that \(\phi,\varphi\colon S\to S\) are two given endomorphisms and \(\mu\colon S\to \mathbb{F}\) is a given multiplicative mapping satisfying the condition \(\mu(x\varphi(x))=1\) for all \(x\in S\). Then the functional equation \[ f(x\phi(y))+\mu(y)f(\varphi(y)x)=2f(x)f(y),\qquad x,y\in S, \] with an unknown function \(f\colon S\to\mathbb{F}\), is introduced and solved. Its solutions are fully characterized in terms of multiplicative mappings from \(S\) to \(\mathbb{F}\). The above equation is a new generalization of the classical d'Alembert functional equation. Several corollaries from the main characterization are derived, for particular forms of the endomorphisms \(\phi,\varphi\) or under additional assumptions imposed on them, obtaining both new results and extensions of known results.