A counterexample to a conjecture on simultaneous Waring identifiability (Q6170810)

A simultaneous Waring decomposition of a set of homogeneous polynomials \(S=\{f_1,\dots,f_k\}\), with \(\deg(f_i)=d_i\), is a set of (homogeneous) linear forms \(L_1, \dots,L_r\) such that each \(f_i\) can be written as a linear combination of \(d_i\)-th powers of the \(L_j\)'s. The author considers the problem of the uniqueness of a minimal simultaneous Waring decomposition (in other words, the identifiability) for a general set \(S\) of polynomials of fixed degrees. Some recent results on the topic suggest the existence of cases in which generic identifiability holds. The author disproves one of these cases, i.e. the case where \(f_1,\dots,f_{k-1}\) are ternary polynomiuals of degree \(k\) and \(f_k\) is a ternary polynomial of degree \(k+1\). A geometric reduction links the identifiability property of \(S\) to properties of secant varieties of a suitable projective bundle \(X\subset \mathbb P^N\). The author constructs an algorithm, implemented in Macaulay2 equipped with the package Bertini. hence based on homotopic continuation, that computes number of secant spaces to \(X\) passing through a generic point of \(\mathbb P^N\). Running the program, the author proves that a set of three generic ternary polynomials of degree \(4\) and one generic ternary polynomial of degree \(5\) has at least \(36\) (minimal) decompositions in terms of \(11\) linear forms.