On the equality of Bajraktarević means to quasi-arithmetic means (Q2301577)

The main aim of this paper is to solve the functional equation \[ tf (x) + (1 - t)f (y) \varphi(tx + (1- t)y)= tf (x)\varphi(x) + (1- t)f (y)\varphi(y)\qquad (x, y \in I),\tag{\(\ast\)} \] where \(t \in ]0, 1[\), \(\varphi: I \to \mathbb{R}\) is strictly monotone, and \(f : I \to \mathbb{R}\) is an arbitrary unknown function. As a byproduct the authors shed new light on the equality problem of Bajraktarević means with quasi-arithmetic means. To handle this equality problem, a particular case (without additional unnatural regularity assumptions) is considered. More precisely, the authors solve the equality problem of Bajraktarević means to quasi-arithmetic means in two settings: in the class of two-variable symmetric means and in the class of two-variable nonsymmetrically weighted of more than two-variable weighted means. After some substitutions, these equality problems can be reduced to the above functional equation. According to this, in the second section the authors prove the following claim (Theorem 4 in the paper). Theorem. Let \(\varphi : I\to \mathbb{R}\) be a strictly monotone function, \(f : I \to \mathbb{R}\) be an arbitrary function, and \(t \in ]0, 1[\). Assume that the functional equation \((\ast)\) holds. Then either \(f\) is identically zero or \(f\) is nowhere zero, \(f\) and \(\varphi\) are infinitely many times differentiable and there exists a nonzero constant \(\gamma\in \mathbb{R}\) such that \[ f^{2}\cdot \varphi' = \gamma. \] The last section contains several results for the following equality problems \[ B_{g,f} ((x, y), (t, 1 - t)) = A_{h} ((x, y), (t, 1 - t)), \] \[ B_{g,f} (x, y) = A_{h}(x, y) \] and \[ B_{g,f} (x, \lambda) = A_{h} (x,\lambda), \] respectively.