Waring rank of symmetric tensors, and singularities of some projective hypersurfaces (Q2211664)

Let \(f\) be a form in \(\mathbb{C}[x_1,\ldots,x_n]\) of degree \(d\). The Waring rank of \(f\) is the minimal value of \(r\) for which there exist linear forms \(\ell_1,\ldots,\ell_r\) such that \[ (\mathcal{D})~f = \ell_1^d + \cdots + \ell_r^d. \] The paper deals with the connection between the hyperplane arrangement \(V_{\mathcal{D}} : f=0\) and the Boolean hypersurface \(A_{\mathcal{D}}: \ell_1 \cdots \ell_r = 0\). The main result is for the case \(r = n+1\). The authors show that the hypersurface \(V_{\mathcal{D}}\) has at most isolated singularities, and that the type of these singularities are completely determined by the combinatorics of \(A_{\mathcal{D}}\). When \(n=3\), the possible singularities of the curve \(V_{\mathcal{D}}\) are determined for two additional cases. The first is when \(A_{\mathcal{D}}\) has a point of multiplicity \(r-1\), and the second concerns two out of the four possible line arrangements for \(A_{\mathcal{D}}\) when \(r=5\).