On maximum, typical and generic ranks (Q2516884)

In many areas of applied mathematics, the notion of shortest decomposition of a vector into simple vectors is of prime importance. Here, the authors consider the rank of a vector w.r.t. a variety over an arbitrary field. An irreducible projective variety \(X\) is called nondegenerate if it is not contained in a hyperplane. For such varieties, one defines the \(X\)-rank of a vector \(v \neq 0\) to be the length of the shortest decomposition of \(v\) into elements of the affine cone over \(X\). For example, the tensor rank is a rank w.r.t. a Segre variety, Waring rank w.r.t. a Veronese variety and antisymmetric tensor rank w.r.t. a Grassmannian variety. A rank value \(r\) is called generic if the vectors of \(X\)-rank \(r\) contain a Zariski open subset. It is well known that for algebraically closed fields the generic rank is unique. Not very much is known about the maximum \(X\)-rank. The first of the three main theorems shows that this value cannot exceed twice the generic rank. If we take the field of real numbers, the above-mentioned uniqueness does not hold. Here, a rank is called typical if the vectors of \(X\)-rank \(r\) contain an open subset. The second and third main theorems show that for an irreducible, nondegenerate, real projective variety whose real points are Zariski dense, (a) the minimum typical \(X\)-rank equals the generic rank w.r.t. the complexification of \(X\), and (b) the maximum \(X\)-rank cannot exceed twice the minimum typical \(X\)-rank.