Progress on the symmetric Strassen conjecture (Q2341528)

This article investigates the additive conjecture of Strassen for bilinear maps, which deals with computational complexity. In this paper this conjecture is considered from an algebraic geometry point of view. The conjecture is reformulated in terms of symmetric tensors and of Waring rank. More precisely: the symmetric tensors lead to the consideration of homogeneous polynomials in degree \(d\), also known as forms \(F\) of degree \(d\). The Waring rank of a form \(F\) is defined as the minimum on the set of integers \(r\) such that \(F =\sum_{i=1}^r L_{i}^{d}\), for linear forms \(L_{i}\). In this new approach the conjecture states that: For \(F\) and \(G\) non zero forms of degree \(d>1\), defined on disjoint sets of variables one has the following additive property: \(\mathrm{rk}(F+G)=\mathrm{rk}(F)+\mathrm{rk}(G)\). In this paper it is shown that this conjecture is true in the case of one and two variables and for forms of small Waring rank. This result can be formulated as follows: Let \(d>1\) and let \(F\in\mathbb{C}[x_{0},\dots,n_{n}], G\in\mathbb{C}[y_{0},\dots,y_{m}]\) be non-zero degree \(d\) forms. If \(n=0\), or \(m=0\) or \(n=1, m=1\) then \(\mathrm{rk}(F+G)=\mathrm{rk}(F)+\mathrm{rk}(G)\). The main tool to prove these statements is to use Hilbert functions of finite set of points.