Affine Sobolev space ($\phi +W_0^{1,p}(\Omega )$)

For prescribed boundary data $\phi$, the affine Sobolev spaceconsists of the $W^{1,p}$ functions whose trace equals the trace of $\phi$. It is the natural admissible set for a variational Dirichlet problem.

To solve a linear Dirichlet problem with boundary value $g$, choose a sufficiently regular extension $G$ whose trace is $g$ and write $v=w+G$. Then $w$ has zero trace, while moving the known term $LG$ to the right-hand side turns the equation $Lv=f$ into the homogeneous-boundary problem $Lw=f-LG$.