From invariance under binomial thinning to unification of the Cauchy and the Gołąb-Schinzel-type equations (Q2044613)

The aim of this paper is to point out to a connection between a problem of invariance of power series families of probability distributions under binomial thinning and functional equations which generalize both the Cauchy and an additive form of the Gołąb-Schinzel equation. The authors solve these equations in several settings without regularity (or with mild) assumptions imposed on the unknown functions. More precisely, they investigate the following two functional equations. Let \((M, +)\) be a magma, i.e., \(M\) is a set equipped with a binary operation \(+ \colon M \times M \to M\). Consider \(U = [0,\infty)\) or \(U = V\), a vector space over a field \(\mathbb{F}\). For unknown functions \(f \colon U \to M\) and \(g, h \colon U \to W\), where \(W = U\) if \(U = [0, \infty)\) and \(W = \mathbb{F}\) if \(U = V\), consider the equations \[ f(s + t) = f(s) + f(h(s)t) \qquad \left(s, t \in U\right), \] and \[ f(s + g(s)t) = f(s) + f(t) \qquad \left(s, t\in U\right). \] Observe that if \(g \equiv 1\) or \(h \equiv 1\), then the above equations become the same Cauchy equation, while if \(f = g\) (thus \(M = W\)), then the second equation becomes an additive form of the Gołąb-Schinzel equation.