On linear functional equations modulo $${\mathbb {Z}}$$

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the condition $$\sum _{i=0}^{n+1}\varphi _i(r_ix+q_iy)\in {\mathbb {Z}}$$ ∑ i = 0 n + 1 φ i ( r i x + q i y ) ∈ Z for real valued functions defined on a linear space V. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for functions satisfying this condition to be decent in the following sense: there exist functions $$f_i:V\rightarrow {\mathbb {R}}$$ f i : V → R , $$g_i:V\rightarrow {\mathbb {Z}}$$ g i : V → Z such that $$\varphi _i=f_i+g_i$$ φ i = f i + g i , $$(i=0,\dots ,n+1)$$ ( i = 0 , ⋯ , n + 1 ) and $$\sum _{i=0}^{n+1}f_i(r_ix+q_iy)=0$$ ∑ i = 0 n + 1 f i ( r i x + q i y ) = 0 for all $$x, y\in V$$ x , y ∈ V .