Apolarity and direct sum decomposability of polynomials (Q905037)

A polynomial \(F\) is a direct sum if there exist non zero polynomials \(F_1 = F_1(t_1,\dots , t_s)\) and \(F_2 = F_2(t_{s+1},\dots, t_n)\) such that \(F = F_1+F_2\). Polynomials are generally not expressed as direct sums, and it is difficult to prove that a specific polynomial is not a direct sum. In the paper, the authors give a condition for which a polynomial is not a direct sum. They show the following: Theorem 1.1. If \(F\) is a direct sum then \(F^{\perp}\) has a minimal generator of degree \(\deg(F)\), where \(F^{\perp}\) is the set of polynomials that annihilates F by partial differentiation. As a consequence, they answer a question raised by S. Shafiei by showing that the generic polynomial \(\det_n = \det((x_{i,j})^n_{i,j=1})\) is not a direct sum. The converse to Theorem 1.1 does not hold. For that, the authors prove that if \(F^{\perp}\) has a minimal generator of degree \(\deg(F)\) then \(F\) is a limit of direct sums. Furthermore, they prove that if \(F\) is a limit of direct sum depending strictly on all variables then \(F^{\perp}\) has a minimal generator of degree \(\deg(F)\).