On the cactus rank of cubic forms

International audienceWe prove that the smallest degree of an apolar $0$-dimensional scheme of a general cubic form in $n+1$ variables is at most $2n+2$, when $n\geq 8$, and therefore smaller than the rank of the form. For the general reducible cubic form the smallest degree of an apolar subscheme is $n+2$, while the rank is at least $2n$

On polynomials with given Hilbert function and applications

Using Macaulay's correspondence we study the family of Artinian Gorenstein local algebras with fixed symmetric Hilbert function decomposition. As an application we give a new lower bound for cactus varieties of the third Veronese embedding. We discuss the case of cubic surfaces, where interesting phenomena occur

Variety of power sums and divisors in the moduli space of cubic fourfolds

We show that a cubic fourfold F that is apolar to a Veronese surface has the property that its variety of power sums VSP(F,10) is singular along a K3 surface of genus 20. We prove that these cubics form a divisor in the moduli space of cubic fourfolds and that this divisor is not a Noether-Lefschetz divisor. We use this result to prove that there is no nontrivial Hodge correspondence between a very general cubic and its VSP.Comment: 42 pages, expanded and revised version to appear in Documenta Mathematic

Geometric lower bounds for generalized ranks

We revisit a geometric lower bound for Waring rank of polynomials (symmetric rank of symmetric tensors) of Landsberg and Teitler and generalize it to a lower bound for rank with respect to arbitrary varieties, improving the bound given by the "non-Abelian" catalecticants recently introduced by Landsberg and Ottaviani. This is applied to give lower bounds for ranks of multihomogeneous polynomials (partially symmetric tensors); a special case is the simultaneous Waring decomposition problem for a linear system of polynomials. We generalize the classical Apolarity Lemma to multihomogeneous polynomials and give some more general statements. Finally we revisit the lower bound of Ranestad and Schreyer, and again generalize it to multihomogeneous polynomials and some more general settings.Comment: 43 pages. v2: minor change

Lower bound for ranks of invariant forms

We give a lower bound for the Waring rank and cactus rank of forms that are invariant under an action of a connected algebraic group. We use this to improve the Ranestad--Schreyer--Shafiei lower bounds for the Waring ranks and cactus ranks of determinants of generic matrices, Pfaffians of generic skew-symmetric matrices, and determinants of generic symmetric matrices.Comment: 13 page

Tensor decomposition and homotopy continuation

A computationally challenging classical elimination theory problem is to compute polynomials which vanish on the set of tensors of a given rank. By moving away from computing polynomials via elimination theory to computing pseudowitness sets via numerical elimination theory, we develop computational methods for computing ranks and border ranks of tensors along with decompositions. More generally, we present our approach using joins of any collection of irreducible and nondegenerate projective varieties $X_1,\ldots,X_k\subset\mathbb{P}^N$ defined over $\mathbb{C}$. After computing ranks over $\mathbb{C}$, we also explore computing real ranks. Various examples are included to demonstrate this numerical algebraic geometric approach.Comment: We have added two examples: A Coppersmith-Winograd tensor, Matrix multiplication with zeros. (26 pages, 1 figure

Real rank boundaries and loci of forms

In this article we study forbidden loci and typical ranks of forms with respect to the embeddings of $\mathbb P^1\times \mathbb P^1$ given by the line bundles $(2,2d)$. We introduce the Ranestad-Schreyer locus corresponding to supports of non-reduced apolar schemes. We show that, in those cases, this is contained in the forbidden locus. Furthermore, for these embeddings, we give a component of the real rank boundary, the hypersurface dividing the minimal typical rank from higher ones. These results generalize to a class of embeddings of $\mathbb P^n\times \mathbb P^1$. Finally, in connection with real rank boundaries, we give a new interpretation of the $2\times n \times n$ hyperdeterminant.Comment: 17 p