Rank and border rank of real ternary cubics (Q496273)

There are \(16\) equivalence classes of real ternary cubics, up to \(\mathrm{SL}(3)\)-action. For each class, the author computes the rank (the minimal number of summands in decomposition into the scalar multiples of cubes of linear forms), and border rank (a limit variant of the same notion). The complex case was considered by classics (Sylvester, Clebsch, et al.) at the second half of the XIXth century, and later put on the computational footing. The real case naturally offers additional difficulties. The problem has numerous applications in engineering, statistics, computer science, etc. The methods are elementary.