On the equality of two-variable general functional means

Abstract

Given two functions $f,g:I\to\mathbf{R}$ and a probability measure $\mu$ on the Borel subsets of $[0,1]$, the two-variable mean $M_{f,g;\mu}:I^2\to I$ is defined by $$ M_{f,g;\mu}(x,y) :=\bigg(\frac{f}{g}\bigg)^{-1}\left( \frac{\int_0^1 f\big(tx+(1-t)y\big)d\mu(t)} {\int_0^1 g\big(tx+(1-t)y\big)d\mu(t)}\right) \qquad(x,y\in I). $$ This class of means includes quasiarithmetic as well as Cauchy and Bajraktarevi\'c means. The aim of this paper is, for a fixed probability measure $\mu$, to study their equality problem, i.e., to characterize those pairs of functions $(f,g)$ and $(F,G)$ such that $$ M_{f,g;\mu}(x,y)=M_{F,G;\mu}(x,y) \qquad(x,y\in I) $$ holds. Under at most sixth-order differentiability assumptions for the unknown functions $f,g$ and $F,G$, we obtain several necessary conditions for the solutions of the above functional equation. For two particular measures, a complete description is obtained. These latter results offer eight equivalent conditions for the equality of Bajraktarevi\'c means and of Cauchy means.