AlgebraDifficulty 6.2National olympiadProve itCzech-Polish-Slovak Mathematical Match
Find all functions f:(0,+∞)→R satisfying f(x)−f(x+y)=f(yx)f(x+y)for all x,y>0.
Solution
Suppose f(t)=0 for some t>0. For 0<x<t we choose y=t−x>0 and find f(x)=0. From setting x=y=1 we conclude that f(1)=−1. Hence by setting x=y we get f(x)−f(2x)=f(1)f(2x) for x>0. Inductively we find f(2nx)=f(x)(1+f(1))−n.(2) Hence for an arbitrary x>0 we choose n∈N such that 2nx≤t and we conclude from (2) that f(x)=0.
Now suppose f(t)=0 for all t>0. We define g(x):=f(x)−1, x>0, and rewrite the given equation as g(x+y)−g(x)=g(yx)g(x)for all x,y>0.(3) By setting y=1 we obtain g(x+1)=g(x)+1 for all x>0. It follows that g(n)=n−1+g(1) holds for all n∈N. Setting x=y=2 in (3) we now find g(1)=1. Setting x=1 we obtain g(y)g(y1)=1 for all y>0. We can now rewrite (3) as g(x+y)=g(x)+g(x)g(xy)=g(x)(1+g(xy))=g(x)g(xx+y).(4) From (4) we directly see that g(a)g(b)=g(ab) for all a>0 and b>1. Using g(y)g(y1)=1, we can rewrite (4) as g(x+yx)g(x+y)=g(x), which together with the previous line shows that g(a)g(b)=g(ab) holds indeed for all a,b>0. In particular we see that g(a)=g(a)2>0, so g is a positive function. Also, from the first equation in (4) we now infer the functional equation g(x+y)=g(x)+g(y)for all x,y∈(0,∞). It is well known that this implies g(x)=xg(1)=x for x∈Q>0. Since g is positive, by (3) we deduce that g(x+y)>g(x), so g is strictly increasing. Hence g(x)=x for all x>0.
Since f(x)=0 and f(x)=x1 obviously satisfy the given equation, we have found all solutions. □
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