Thursday, 9 May 2013

Help in solving a simple functional equation



I need to find all continuous functions satisfying:



3f(2x+1)=f(x)+5x



The functional equation looks simple but I am unable to solve it. I tried to convert it into a Cauchy type equation but I wasn't able to do so.


Answer




Let g(x)=f(x1). Then we have
3g(2x+2)=g(x+1)+5x,

or equivalently
g(x)13g(x2)=5x106=:ϕ(x).

Note that g(0)=2.5. Hence we have
g(x)=g(x)limj3jg(2jx)=j=0(3jg(2jx)3j1g(2j1x))=j=03jϕ(2jx)=16j=03j(52jx10)=6x156=x52.
This establishes f(x)=x32.



EDIT: I implicitly assumed that the domain of definition of g is R. If the domain of g contains 0, then the unique continuous solution is given by g(x)=x52 as we can see from the above argument. Otherwise, the argument collapses, and one can see that g(x)=(x52)+h(x)

is a solution of g(x)13g(x2)=ϕ(x) whenever it holds that h(x)=13h(x2)().
Note that any continuous function k:[1,2]R with k(2)=13k(1) can be extended uniquely to continuous ¯k:(0,)R satisfying (). This shows that there are as many solutions g:x(0,)(x52)+¯k(x)
as there are k:[1,2]R with k(2)=13k(1). And the same is also true for g(x) on (,0).


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