Character Moduli, Regular Extension, and Rational Rank for Reciprocal Cost
We study non-negative solutions to the reciprocal cost law on positive rationals and determine which of them admit regular extensions to positive reals. Using the substitution H=1+F, we reduce the reciprocal composition law to d’Alembert’s functional equation. We prove that every non-negative solution on Q>0 is determined by one real weight αp for each prime p, with only a global sign identification. Thus, the rational solution space is infinite-dimensional. We prove that every non-negative rational solution has an algebraic extension to R>0, but a regular extension exists exactly when the prime weights satisfy αp=λlogp for some λ∈R. In this case, the extension is unique and belongs to the one-parameter family Fλ(x)=cosh(λlogx)−1. Otherwise, the rational solution is unbounded on every nonempty open subset of Q>0, and the regular locus is closed and nowhere dense. We also extend the result to arbitrary nontrivial subgroups of R>0, where the alternative is governed by rational rank. Finally, we show that the unit logarithmic curvature selects the canonical reciprocal cost J(()x)=(x+x−1)/2−1, whereas, for a carrier G whose logarithm is dense in R, the single asymptotic condition F(es)∼s2/2 implies both regularity and calibration.
Authors
- Sebastián Pardo-Guerra (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1775-3784)
- Milan Lj. Zlatanović (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0318-1092)
- Jonathan Washburn (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8868-7497)
Institutions
- University of Nis (RS)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Axioms
- Published
- 2026-11-11
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/axioms15110844
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Functional Equations Stability Results
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.07