A cardinal number connected to the solvability of systems of difference equations in a given function class

Abstract: Let

R^{R}

denote the set of real valued functions defined on the real line. A map

D : R^{R} o R^{R}

is a {it difference operator}, if there are real numbers

a_{i}, b_{i} (i = 1, ..., n)

such that

(D f) (x) = s u m_{i = 1}^{n} a_{i} f (x + b_{i})

for every

f i n R^{R}

and

x i n R

. A {it system of difference equations} is a set of equations

S = D_{i} f = g_{i} : i i n I

, where

I

is an arbitrary set of indices,

D_{i}

is a difference operator and

g_{i}

is a given function for every

i i n I

, and

f

is the unknown function. One can prove that a system

S

is solvable if and only if every finite subsystem of

S

is solvable. However, if we look for solutions belonging to a given class of functions, then the analogous statement fails. For example, there exists a system

S

such that every finite subsystem of

S

has a solution which is a trigonometric polynomial, but

S

has no such solution. This phenomenon motivates the following definition. Let

c a l F

be a class of functions. The {it solvability cardinal}

s o l c (i F)

of

c a l F

is the smallest cardinal

k a p p a

such that whenever

S

is a system of difference equations and each subsystem of

S

of cardinality less than

k a p p a

has a solution in

c a l F

, then

S

itselfhas a solution in

c a l F

. In this paper we determine the solvability cardinals of most function classes that occur in analysis. As it turns out, the behaviour of

s o l c (c a l F)

is rather erratic. For example,

s o l c (e x t p o l y n o m i a l s) = 3

but

s o l c (e x t t r i g o n o m e t r i c p o l y n o m i a l s) = o m e g a_{1}

,

s o l c (f : f e x t i s c o n t i n u o u s) = o m e g a_{1}

but

s o l c (f : f e x t i s D a r b o u x) = (2^{o} m e g a)^{+}

, and

s o l c (R^{R}) = o m e g a

. We consistently determine the solvability cardinals of the classes of Borel, Lebesgue and Baire measurable functions, and give some partial answers for the Baire class 1 and Baire class

a l p h a

functions.

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