An upper bound for the Waring rank of a form (Q2453480)

Fix a degree \(d\) homogeneous polynomial \(f\) in \(n\) variables over \(\mathbb {C}\) (or a symmetric \(d\)-tensor over \(\mathbb {C}^n\)). The rank \(\mathrm{rk} (f)\) of \(f\) is the minimal number of \(d\) powers of linear forms whose sum is \(f\). It is a well-studied and important (but difficult to compute) invariant of \(f\). The author introduces a very interesting generalization: the open rank of \(f\), \(\mathrm{ork}(f)\), as follows: fix any proper Zariski closed subset \(V_1\) of the space \(S_1\) of all degree \(1\) forms over \(\mathbb {C}^n\); we impose the existence of \(L_i \in S_1\setminus V_1\), \(1\leq i\leq \mathrm{ork} (f)\), whose sum is \(f\). This definition is a stronger form of a definition introduced in [\textit{A. Białinicki-Birula} and \textit{A. Schinzel}, Coll. Math., No. 2, 201--233 (2008; Zbl 1154.11011)] in which \(V_1\) is a union of finitely many hyperplanes of \(S_1\). In the paper under review the author, proves that the open rank is at most \(\binom{n+d-2}{d-1} -\binom{n+d-6}{d-3}\). This result is still interesting, but at that time it was also an improvement of the only known upper bound for the rank of \(f\) (Proposition 5.1 of [\textit{J. M. Landsberg} and \textit{Z. Teitler}, Found. Comput. Math. 10, No. 3, 339--366 (2010; Zbl 1196.15024)]. For the rank the upper bound was greatly improved in [\textit{G. Blekherman} and \textit{Z. Teitler}, Math. Ann. 362, No. 3-4, Article ID 1150, 1021--1031 (2015; Zbl 1326.15034)].