On alienation of two functional equations of quadratic type (Q2055260)

The paper deals with the alienation problem for the following two functional equations: \[ f(\alpha x+\beta y)+f(\alpha x-\beta y)=2\alpha^2f(x)+2\beta^2f(y), \leqno (1) \] and \[ g(x+y)+g(x-y)=2g(x)+2g(y). \leqno (2) \] This is equivalent to study when the equation \[ f(\alpha x+\beta y)+f(\alpha x-\beta y)+g(x+y)+g(x-y)-2g(x)-2g(y)=2\alpha^2f(x)+2\beta^2f(y) \leqno (3) \] forces the functions \(f\) and \(g\) to satisfy (1) and (2) respectively. The complete answer to the problem above is given by the following theorem. Theorem. Let \(X\) and \(Y\) be two real linear spaces and let \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) be two nonzero real numbers such that \(1\neq \alpha^2 \neq \beta^2\). If \(\alpha\) is rational then Equation (3) is satisfied if and only if both Equations (1) and (2) are fulfilled provided that \(f(0)=g(0)=0\). Moreover in this case \(f\) is quadratic. It follows easily that without the condition \(f(0)=g(0)=0\) Equation (3) is satisfied if and only if there exists a constant \(c \in Y\) such that \[ f(\alpha x+\beta y)+f(\alpha x-\beta y)=2\alpha^2f(x)+2\beta^2f(y)+c, \] and \[ g(x+y)+g(x-y)=2g(x)+2g(y)-c. \] The special case when \(g=\gamma f\) has been investigated by \textit{C. I. Kim} et al. [Abstr. Appl. Anal. 2013, Article ID 283173, 8 p. (2013; Zbl 1291.39053)]. In that paper nothing is said if \(\alpha\) is not rational; on the contrary, in this paper it is shown with an example that if \(\beta\) is arbitrary, \(\alpha=\pi\) and \(\gamma=-\beta^2\) there exists an additive solution \(f\) of (3), so that \(f\) is not quadratic.