Orthogonal and unitary tensor decomposition from an algebraic perspective (Q1686310)

It is known that every matrix admits a singular value decomposition, in which the terms are pairwise orthogonal in a strong sense. However, higher-order tensors typically do not admit such an orthogonal decomposition. Those that do have attracted attention from theoretical computer science and scientific computing. The authors provide an algebro-geometric analysis of the set of orthogonally decomposable tensors. They prove that they form a real-algebraic variety defined by polynomials of degree at most four. The exact degrees, and the corresponding polynomials, are different in each of three times two scenarios: ordinary, symmetric, or alternating tensors; and real-orthogonal versus complex-unitary. A key feature of this approach is a surprising connection between orthogonally decomposable tensors and semisimple algebras -- associative in the ordinary and symmetric settings and of compact Lie type in the alternating setting.