Generalized Cauchy means (Q284690)

The author utilized the definition from his paper [the author and \textit{J. Moro}, Aequationes Math. 60, No. 1--2, 1--14 (2000; Zbl 0965.39019)] in connection with Cauchy means: Given two means \(M|\) and \(N|\), the operator \(\mathcal{M}_{M,N|}\) assigning to a given mean \(\mu|\) the mean \[ \mathcal{M}_{M,N}(\mu)(x,y)=M(\mu(x,N(x,y)),\mu(N(x,y),y))| \] The Cauchy mean generated by the pair \(f|\), \(g|\) of continuous and strictly monotonic functions is the unique solution \(\mu\) to the fixed point equation \[ \mathcal{M}_{A_{(f)},A_{(g)}}(\mu)=\mu,| \] where \(A_{(f)}|\) and \(A_{(g)}|\) are the quasiarithmetic means respectively generated by \(f|\) and \(g|\). In this article, the operator \(\mathcal{M}_{M,N}|\) is studied under less restrictive conditions and a general fixed point theorem is derived from an explicit formula for the iterates \(\mathcal{M}_{M,N}^{n}|\). The concept of class of generalized Cauchy means associated to a given family of mixing pairs of means is introduced and some distinguished families of pairs are well presented. Finally, a challenging open question is mentioned in these classes of means. This article is useful to researchers working on means and its applications.