On the classes of higher-order Jensen-convex functions and Wright-convex functions (Q450998)

Given a real interval \(I\) and a function \(f:I\to \mathbb{R}\), the authors put \[ \Delta _h f(x):=f(x+h)-f(x), \] where \(x\in I\) and \(h\in \mathbb{R}\) are such that \(x+h\in I\), and \[ \Delta _{h_1 \dots h_{n+1}} f(x):=\Delta _{h_1 \ldots h_n} (\Delta _{h_{n+1}}f(x)) \] for \(n\in \mathbb{N}\), \(x\in I\) and \(h_1 ,\ldots , h_{n+1}\in \mathbb{R}\) with all needed arguments belonging to \(I\) (if \(h_1 =\ldots =h_n =h\), then they also set \[ \Delta _h ^n f(x):=\Delta _{h \dots h}f(x)). \] A function \(f\) is called \(n\)-Jensen-convex if \(\Delta _h ^{n+1} f(x)\geq 0\) for \(x\in I\) and \(h>0\) such that \(x+(n+1)h\in I\), whereas it is said to be \(n\)-Wright-convex provided \(\Delta _{h_1 \ldots h_{n+1}} f(x)\geq 0\) for \(x\in I\) and \(h_1 , \ldots , h_{n+1}>0\) with \(x+h_1 + \cdots + h_{n+1}\in I\). It is obvious that every \(n\)-Wright-convex function is \(n\)-Jensen-convex. In this paper, it is shown that for any odd positive integer \(n\) the converse is not true (the case of even \(n\) remains an open problem). Namely, using a method connected with measure theory, the authors prove that for every such an \(n\) the function \(f:\mathbb{R}\to \mathbb{R}\) given by \[ f(x):=\big(\frac{a(x)+|a(x)|}{2}\big)^n , \] where \(a:\mathbb{R}\to \mathbb{R}\) is an additive mapping such that \(a(h_1 )=-1\) and \(a(h_2 )=\cdots =a(h_{n+1})=1\) with some \(h_1 ,\ldots ,h_{n+1}>0\) being elements of a Hamel basis, which is \(n\)-Jensen-convex but it is not \(n\)-Wright-convex.