Distributional methods for functional equations (Q5945052)

The author studies two functional equations, due to Z. Daróczy and K. Heuvers respectively, viz. \[ f\left({x+y\over 2}\right)+ f \left( {2xy\over x+y}\right) =f(x)+f(y),\;x,y\in I,\tag{D} \] where \(I\) is an open subinterval of \(]0,\infty[\), and \[ f(x+y)- f(x)-f(y)= f\left({1\over x}+{1 \over y}\right), \quad x>0,\;y>0.\tag{H} \] He carefully describes the tools from the theory of distributions (composition of distributions with submersions and elliptic regularity for ordinary differential equations) that he needs for these and similar functional equations. Using ordinary differential equations that arise from differentiating (D) and (H) twice, he then proves by simple arguments that the distributional solutions of (D) and (H) are \(f(x)=\alpha \log x+ \beta\) and \(f(x)= \alpha\log x\), respectively, where \(\alpha,\beta\in C\) are arbitrary.