I have a conjecture inspired by the following observation. If f:R→R is a continuous bijective function that satisfies f(x)+f−1(x)=2x and has a fixed point, then f(x)=x. This can be proved quite easily, though not trivial.
I conjecture that if we omit the assumption that f has a fixed point, then f(x)=x+d for some d∈R. More generally, I think that if f:Rn→Rn is continuous bijection which satisfies f(x)+f−1(x)=Λx for some bijective linear map Λ:Rn→Rn, then f must be linear.
I first want to tackle a seemingly easier problem: does there exist a bijective linear map S with S+S−1=Λ? Unfortunately I could not handle this problem, so I would really appreciate it if you could give me some suggestions or a counterexample.
Answer
Okay, here's a proof sketch for your first conjecture.
Let f:R→R be a continuous bijection, therefore monotonic. Suppose f(x)+f−1(x)=2x. Then for all a∈R and n∈Z, f also satisfies fn(a)=a+nda where da=f(a)−a, by induction on n. You've already handled the case where some da=0, so assume that all da≠0. Then we've described the behavior of f on a bunch of lattices in R.
Now, if for some a1,a2∈R we have da1≠da2, then the two lattices don't interleave properly at large values of n (starting somewhere around (a2−a1)/(da1−da2), I think). So f is not monotonic, a contradiction. Therefore da doesn't depend on a, and f(x)=x+d0 for all x.
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