On minimal decompositions of low rank symmetric tensors (Q2226411)

In the article under review, the authors study the ranks of symmetric tensors via their interpretation as the Waring ranks of homogeneous forms. The main result (Theorem 4.2) classifies via apolarity theory, and in terms of Hilbert sequences, the symmetric tensors with degree at least equal to three and rank at most equal to five. It describes a stratification of the set of low rank symmetric tensors with respect to the possible configurations of minimal apolar sets of points. The main results for apolarity theory are given in [\textit{A. Iarrobino} and \textit{V. Kanev}, Power sums, Gorenstein algebras, and determinantal loci. With an appendix `The Gotzmann theorems and the Hilbert scheme' by Anthony Iarrobino and Steven L. Kleiman. Berlin: Springer (1999; Zbl 0942.14026)]. In the present article, the proof of the main result is constructive and the authors describe an implementation of their algorithm in the computer algebra software Macaulay2. The proof utilizes the concept of Waring locus, which was introduced in [\textit{E. Carlini} et al., Adv. Math. 314, 630--662 (2017; Zbl 1373.14049)]. The intuition behind the Waring locus, is that it contains those linear forms that can be used to decrease the rank of a given homogeneous polynomial. The authors' stratification of low rank symmetric tensors gives an iterative procedure for constructing the minimal Waring decompositions. Finally, motivated by their results, the authors ask if it is true that, for a given form, all of its minimal apolar sets of points have the same regularity and Hilbert function?