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Anixx
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This answer has been deleted for the first time, so this is a re-post. The first answer also had an error in the plot. Since the questioner asked the following question "Is there a general solution strategy to equations of this kind?" I'll try to respond.

The half-iterate of a function can be found by expressing its superfunction in a form of Newton series:

$$f^{[1/2]}(x)=\sum_{m=0}^{\infty} \binom {1/2}m \sum_{k=0}^m\binom mk(-1)^{m-k}f^{[k]}(x)$$

Where $f^{[k]}(x)$ means k-th iterate of $f(x)$ This series converges if two criteria are met:

  1. The superfunction of f(x) grows slower than factorial

  2. Runge phenomenon does not appear.

There is a number of strategies to combat Runge phenomenon which are outside of this answer's scope. It is worth noting though that trying to find a half iterate of the function $f(x)=\cos x$ leads to this Runge swamp and one needs to employ one of the mentioned techniques to acheve convergence.

Opposite case is with the function $f(x)=\sin x$. The superfunction is limited by $\pm 1$ and the series converges without any problem.

Below is a plot of half-iterate of $\sin x$, obtained with this formula. It is periodic with the same period as $\sin x$. The red curve is the half-iterate, and the blue curve is the half-iterate, repeated twice, and we can see that it is indeed very similar to sine function:

alt text http://static.itmages.ru/i/10/1103/h_1288817355_190375f7a1.png

This plot is made from the first 15 terms of the above series.

This formula for the half-iterate can be used to find not only half-itertes but any real iterate of a function by substituting the needed value instead of 1/2.

The formula can be also written in the following forms:

$$f^{[s]}(x)=\lim_{n\to\infty}\binom sn\sum_{k=0}^n\frac{x-n}{x-k}\binom nk(-1)^{n-k}f^{[k]}(x)$$

$$f^{[s]}(x)=\lim_{n\to\infty}\frac{\sum_{k=0}^{n} \frac{(-1)^k f^{[k]}(x)}{(s-k)k!(n-k)!}}{\sum_{k=0}^{n} \frac{(-1)^k }{(s-k) k!(n-k)!}}$$

There are also some other formulas giving the same result.

Anixx
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