Groups and Vector Spaces

In the following, we will have a closer look at vector spaces, i.e., the space in
which vectors live.
We can informally characterize vectors as objects that can be added together
and multiplied by a scalar, and they remain objects of the same type. In the
following, we will formalize this intuition and we will start by introducing the
concept of a group, which is a set of elements and an operation defined on these
elements that keeps some structure of the set intact.

Groups
Groups play an important role in computer science. Besides providing a funda-
mental framework for operations on sets, they are heavily used in cryptography,
coding theory and graphics.
Definition 1 (Group). Consider a set G and an operation ⊗ : G → G defined on
G.
Then G := (G, ⊗) is called a group if the following hold: group
Closure
1. Closure of G under ⊗: ∀x, y ∈ G : x ⊗ y ∈ G
Associativity:
2. Associativity: ∀x, y, z ∈ G : (x ⊗ y) ⊗ z = x ⊗ (y ⊗ z)
Neutral ele-
3. Neutral element: ∃e ∈ G ∀x ∈ G : x ⊗ e = x and e ⊗ x = x ment:
Inverse ele-
4. Inverse element: ∀x ∈ G ∃y ∈ G : x ⊗ y = e and y ⊗ x = e. We often write ment:
x−1 to denote the inverse element of x.
If additionally ∀x, y ∈ G : x ⊗ y = y ⊗ x then G = (G, ⊗) is an Abelian group Abelian group
(commutative).
For example, ⊗ could be +, · defined on R, N, Z or ∪, ∩, \ defined on P(B),
the power set of B.
Remark. The inverse element is defined with respect to the operation ⊗ and
does not necessarily mean x1 .

Example: (Groups)

• (Z, +) is a group
• (N0 , +)1 is not a group: Although (N0 , +) possesses a neutral element (0),
the inverse elements are missing.
• (Z, ·) is not a group: Although (Z, ·) contains a neutral element (1), the
inverse elements for any z ∈ Z, z 6= ±1, are missing.
1N := N ∪ {0}
0

1
 • (R, ·) is not a group since 0 does not possess an inverse element.
• (R\{0}) is Abelian.
• (Rn , +), (Zn , +), n ∈ N are Abelian if + is defined componentwise, i.e.,

(x1 , · · · , xn ) + (y1 , · · · , yn ) = (x1 + y1 , · · · , xn + yn ). (1)

Then, (x1 , · · · , xn )−1 := (−x1 , · · · , −xn ) is the inverse element and e =

(0, · · · , 0) is the neutral element.
• (Rm×n , +), the set of m × n-matrices is Abelian (with componentwise
addition).

Vector Spaces
When we discussed groups, we looked at sets G and inner operations on G, i.e.,
mappings G × G → G. In the following, we will consider sets that in addition to
an inner operation + also contain an outer operation ·, the multiplication by a
scalar λ ∈ R.
Definition 2 (Vector space). A real-valued vector space (also called an R-vector vector space
space) is a set V with two operations R-vector space
+: V ×V →V (2)
·: R×V →V (3)

where
1. (V, +) is an Abelian group
2. Distributivity:

(a) λ · (x + y) = λ · x + λ · y ∀λ ∈ R, x, y ∈ V
(b) (λ + ψ) · x = λ · x + ψ · x ∀λ, ψ ∈ R, x ∈ V
3. Associativity (outer operation): λ · (ψ · x) = (λψ) · x ∀λ, ψ ∈ R, x ∈ V
4. Neutral element with respect to the outer operation: 1 · x = x, ∀x ∈ V

The elements x ∈ V are called vectors. The neutral element of (V, +) is the zero vectors
vector 0 = [0, . . . , 0]> , and the inner operation + is called vector addition. The vector addi-
elements λ ∈ R are called scalars and the outer operation · is a multiplication by tion
scalars. Note that a scalar product is an inner product and, therefore, something scalars
different. multiplication
by scalars

2
Remark. A “vector multiplication” ab, a, b ∈ Rn , is not defined. Theoretically,
we could define an element-wise multiplication, such that c = ab with cj =
aj bj . This “array multiplication” is common to many programming languages
but makes mathematically limited sense using the standard rules for matrix
multiplication: By treating vectors as n × 1 matrices (which we usually do),
we can use the matrix multiplication. However, then the dimensions of the
vectors do not match. Only the following multiplications for vectors are defined:
ab> ∈ Rn×n (outer product), a> b ∈ R (inner/scalar/dot product).

Vector Subspaces
In the following, we will introduce vector subspaces. Intuitively, they are sets
contained in the original vector space with the property that when we perform
vector space operations on elements within this subspace, we will never leave
it. In this sense, they are “closed”.
Definition 3 (Vector Subspace). Let (V, +, ·) be an R-vector space and U ⊆ V,
U 6= ∅. Then U = (U, +, ·) is called vector subspace of V (or linear subspace) if vector sub-
U is a vector space with the vector space operations + and · restricted to U × U space
and R × U. We write U ⊆ V to denote a subspace U of V . linear sub-
space
Remark. If U ⊆ V and V is a vector space, then U naturally inherits many
properties directly from V because they are true for all x ∈ V, and in particular
for all x ∈ U ⊆ V. This includes the Abelian group properties, the distributivity,
the associativity and the neutral element. To determine whether (U, +, ·) is a
subspace of V we still do need to show
1. U 6= ∅, in particular: 0 ∈ U
2. Closure of U :
(a) With respect to the outer operation: ∀λ ∈ R ∀x ∈ U : λx ∈ U
(b) With respect to the inner operation: ∀x, y ∈ U : x + y ∈ U.

Example: (Vector Subspaces)

• For every vector space V the trivial subspaces are V itself and {0}.
• Only example D in Figure 1 is a subspace of R2 (with the usual inner/
outer operations). In A and C, the closure property is violated; B does not
contain 0.
• The solution set of a homogeneous linear equation system Ax = 0 with n
unknowns x = [x1 , . . . , xn ]> is a subspace of Rn .
• The solution of an inhomogeneous equation system Ax = b, b 6= 0 is not
a subspace of Rn .

3
 B
A

D
0 0 0 0
C

Figure 1: Not all subsets of R2 are subspaces. In A and C, the closure property
is violated; B does not contain 0. Only D is a subspace.