Tensors with eigenvectors in a given subspace (Q2120244)

The authors study the Kalman varieties for symmetric tensors and for certain more general tensors, extending previous results obtained for \(n\times m\) matrices. In particular, they prove that these varieties are irreducible and they compute their codimensions and degrees. In the article a \(d\)-dimensional linear subspace \(L\subset \mathbb{C}^n\) is fixed. For a symmetric tensor \(T \in \mathrm{Sym}^k\mathbb{C}^n\), a vector \(v \in \mathbb{C}^n\) is an eigenvector of \(T\) if \(\exists \lambda \in \mathbb{C}\) such that \[ Tv^{k-1}:= \left( \sum_{i_2,\dots, i_k=1}^n T_{i,i_2,\dots, i_k}v_{i_2}\cdots v_{i_k}\right)_i=\lambda v \ . \] Similarly, for a tensor \(T \in \mathbb{C}^{n_1}\otimes \ldots \otimes \mathbb{C}^{n_k}\), a \(k\)-tuple \((v_1,\ldots, v_k)\in \mathbb{C}^{n_1}\setminus \{0\}\times \ldots \times \mathbb{C}^{n_k}\setminus \{0\}\) is a singular \(k\)-tuple for \(T\) if for any \(i=1,\ldots,k\) exists \(\lambda_i \in \mathbb{C}\) such that \[ T(v_1,\dots, \widehat{v_i}, \dots, v_k)=\lambda_i v_i \ . \] Then one defines the Kalman varieties \[ \kappa_{d,n,k}^s(L):=\left\{ f \in \mathrm{Sym}^k\mathbb{C}^n \ | \ \exists v \in L \ \text{eigenvector for} \ f \right\} \ , \] \[ \kappa_{d,n_1,\ldots,n_k}(L):=\left\{T \in \mathbb{C}^{n_1}\otimes \ldots \otimes \mathbb{C}^{n_k} \ | \ \exists (v_1,\ldots, v_k) \text{ singular } k\text{-tuple for } T, \ v_1 \in L\right\} \ . \] The authors prove that \(\kappa_{d,n,k}^s(L)\) (Proposition 2.1) and \(\kappa_{d,n_1,\dots,n_k}(L)\) (Proposition 3.2) are irreducible and have codimensions \(n-d\) and \(n_1-d\) respectively: the images of the projections from the incidence varieties \[ \{(f,v) \ | \ v \ \text{eigenvector of} \ f\}\rightarrow \mathbb{P}(\mathrm{Sym}^k\mathbb{C}^n) \ , \] \[ \{(T,(v_1,\dots, v_k)) \ | \ (v_1,\dots, v_k) \text{ singular } k\text{-tuple for } T \} \rightarrow \mathbb{P}(\mathbb{C}^{n_1}\otimes \ldots \otimes \mathbb{C}^{n_k}) \] restricted to the conditions \(\{v\in L\}\) and \(\{v_1 \in L\}\) are exactly the Kalman varieties. Moreover, the degrees of \(\kappa_{d,n,k}^s(L)\) and \(\kappa_{d,n_1,\ldots, n_k}(L)\) are computed (Theorem 2.3; Theorem 3.4) by exhibiting a vector bundle on \(\mathbb{P}(\mathrm{Sym}^k\mathbb{C}^n)\times \mathbb{P}(\mathbb{C}^n)\) and \(\mathbb{P}(\mathbb{C}^{n_1}\otimes \ldots \otimes \mathbb{C}^{n_k})\times \mathbb{P}(\mathbb{C}^{n_1}\times \ldots \times \mathbb{C}^{n_k})\) respectively with a section vanishing on the incidence varieties above.\\ Finally, the results are applied to the Kalman variety of \(n\times m\) matrices for \(n\leq m\): in Proposition 3.6 its degree is computed, and in Lemma 3.8 a sufficient and necessary condition for the existence of singular pairs is given.