Results on a Conjecture of Chen and Yi

In this paper, we prove that if a nonconstant finite order meromorphic function f and its n-th order difference operator $$\Delta ^n_{\eta }f$$ share $$a_1,$$ $$a_2,$$ $$a_3$$ CM, where n is a positive integer, $$\eta \ne 0$$ is a finite complex value, and $$a_1,$$ $$a_2,$$ $$a_3$$ are three distinct finite complex values, then $$f(z)=\Delta ^n_{\eta }f(z)$$ for each $$z\in \mathbb {C}.$$ The main results in this paper improve and extend many known results concerning a conjecture posed by Chen and Yi in 2013.