On some intermediate mean values

Abstract

We give a necessary and sufficient mean condition for the quotient of two Jensen functionals and define a new class $\Lambda_{f,g}(a, b)$ of mean values where $f, g$ are continuously differentiable convex functions satisfying the relation $f"(t)=t g"(t), t\in \Bbb R^+$. Then we asked for a characterization of $f, g$ such that the inequalities $H(a, b)\le \Lambda_{f, g}(a, b)\le A(a, b)$ or $L(a, b)\le \Lambda_{f, g}(a, b)\le I(a, b)$ hold for each positive $a, b$, where $H, A, L, I$ are the harmonic, arithmetic, logarithmic and identric means, respectively. For a subclass of $\Lambda$ with $g"(t)=t^s, s\in \Bbb R$, this problem is thoroughly solved.