Axiomatic characterization of nonlinear homomorphic means (Q1766710)

The authors offer a new characterization of the quasiarithmetic mean (Q) \(F(\mathbf{x})= F(x_1,\dots,x_n)= U^{-1}[\sum^{n}_{j=1}p_jU(x_j)]\), \(x_j>0\), \(p_j>0\) \((j=1,\dots,n)\), \(\sum^{n}_{j=1}p_j=1)\) \([p_j\geq 0\) is assumed but \(p_j>0\) used; the restriction \(x_j>0\) seems to be needed only in some examples], and of the exponential and linear means \(\ln\sum^n_{j=1}p_je^{ax_j}/a\) \((a\neq 0)\) and \(\sum^n_{j=1}p_j x_j.\) They assume \(F\) to be real valued and differentiable (actually, only continuity of \(F\) and existence of partial derivatives is assumed but analyticity (existence of Taylor expansion) mentioned in the proof; however, differentiability is what is really needed). For previous characterizations, without differentiability assumptions, see e.g. \textit{G. H. Hardy, J. E. Littlewood} and \textit{G. Pólya} [Inequalities, 2nd ed. University Press (Cambridge) 68--69, 158--162 (1952; Zbl 0047.05302)]; or \textit{J. Aczél} [Lectures on functional equations and their applications. (New York and London: Academic Press). (1966; Zbl 0139.09301), pp. 152--153, 234--237, 281--287]. The authors' characterization is based on the ``perturbation axiom'' \(V[F(\mathbf{x}),F(\mathbf{x+h})-F(\mathbf{x})]=\sum^n_{j=1}p_jV(x_j,h_j)+o(\|\mathbf{h}\|),\) ``where \(V(u,v)\) quantifies the variation from \(u\) to \(u+v\) '' with \(V(u,0)=0\), \(\partial V/\partial v\) continuous. `New' means are enumerated by substituting \(\arctan\) and a similar function as \(U\) into (Q). [A comment to Theorem 5.3: idempotence (\(F(x,\dots,x)=x\)), translativity (\(F(x_1+t,x_2+t,\dots ,x_n+t)=F(x_1,x_2,\dots ,x_n)+t\)) and ``scaling'' (homogeneity of first degree) does not characterize the arithmetic mean \(F(x_1,x_2,\dots ,x_n)=(x_1+x_2+\cdots+ x_n)/n\) if \(n>2\); it does if \(n=2\) or if \(x\mapsto F(x,x,\dots ,x)\) is differentiable (see J. Aczél, loc. cit., pp. 235--237)].