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Algebra Difficulty 7.6 National Olympiad, round 2 Prove it Romania

For a non-negative integer nn the nn-th iterate of a function f:RRf: \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R} is fn=ffn timesf^n = \underbrace{f \circ \dots \circ f}_{n \text{ times}}, and f0f^0 is the identity function. Determine the continuous functions f:RRf: \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}, that satisfy simultaneously the conditions:
a) The function f0+f1f^0 + f^1 is increasing.
b) There is a positive integer mm such that the function f0++fmf^0 + \dots + f^m is decreasing.

Solution

We shall prove that all such functions are of the form f(x)=x+cf(x) = -x + c, where cc is a real constant. It is clear that such functions verify the given conditions.

We shall first prove that ff is one to one. Let xx and yy be real numbers such that f(x)=f(y)f(x) = f(y) and define gn=f0++fng_n = f^0 + \dots + f^n, nNn \in \mathbb{N}. Because g1g_1 is increasing, gmg_m is decreasing. As g1(x)g1(y)=xy=gm(x)gm(y)g_1(x) - g_1(y) = x - y = g_m(x) - g_m(y), we get

(xy)2=(g1(x)g1(y))(gm(x)gm(y))0, so x=y. (x - y)^2 = (g_1(x) - g_1(y))(g_m(x) - g_m(y)) \le 0, \text{ so } x = y.

The fact that ff is one to one and continuous implies that it is strictly monotonic, so all its iterates of the form f2kf^{2k} are increasing. As g1g_1 is increasing, from the equality

gn={k=0n/21g1f2k+fn,if n is even,k=0(n1)/2g1f2k,if n odd, g_n = \begin{cases} \sum_{k=0}^{n/2-1} g_1 \circ f^{2k} + f^n, & \text{if } n \text{ is even,} \\ \sum_{k=0}^{(n-1)/2} g_1 \circ f^{2k}, & \text{if } n \text{ odd,} \end{cases}

gng_n is strictly increasing for even nn and increasing for odd nn. As gmg_m is decreasing we deduce that mm is odd and gmg_m is constant. Finally, as g1g_1 is increasing and all even iterates of ff are increasing, we conclude that g1g_1 is constant. This gives the result.

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