Secant degeneracy index of the standard strata in the space of binary forms (Q1706294)

A standard stratum \(S_{\mu}\) in the projective space \(\mathbb P(\mathbb C[x,y]_d)\) of binary forms of degree \(d\) is defined by taking forms whose roots have preassigned multiplicities \(\mu\), where \(\mu\) is a partition of \(d\). The authors define the \textit{secant degeneracy number} \(\ell_{\mu}\) as the minimum integer \(\ell\) for which one can find a set of \(\ell\) distinct points in \(S_{\mu}\) which are linearly dependent. The authors prove inequalities for the degeneracy numbers of standard strata \(S_{\mu}\) and of their closures \(\bar S_{\mu}\). Moreover, the authors give, in some cases, a description of sets of linearly dependent points in a stratum \(S_{\mu}\).