Affine Subspace

šŸ…Ÿ May 11, 2026

  šŸ…¤ Jun 20, 2026

Definition 1.

Let $V$ be a vector space and $X \subseteq V$. $X$ is an affine subspace if there is $v \in V$ and a subspace $W \subseteq V$ such that $X = v + W$.


Proposition 1.

Every subspace of a vector space is an affine subspace.

Proposition 2.

Let $V$ be a vector space. For any affine subspace $X = v + W$ ($v \in V$, $W \subseteq V$):

  1. For any $x \in V$, $x \in X$ if and only if $x - v \in W$.
  2. $X = x + W$ for all $x \in X$.

Proposition 3.

The underlying subspace of every affine subspace is unique. That means, if $V$ is a vector space, $v$, $v’ \in V$ and $W$, $W’ \subseteq V$ are subspaces such that

\[v + W = v' + W',\]

then $W = W’$.