This survey provides an overview of higher-order tensor decompositions, their applications, and available software. A tensor is a multidimensional or N -way array. Decompositions of higher-order tensors (i.e., N -way arrays with N ≥ 3) have applications in psychometrics, chemometrics, signal processing, numerical linear algebra, computer vision, numerical analysis, data mining, neuroscience, graph analysis, etc. Two particular tensor decompositions can be considered to be higher-order extensions of the matrix singular value decompo- sition: CANDECOMP/PARAFAC (CP) decomposes a tensor as a sum of rank-one tensors, and the Tucker decomposition is a higher-order form of principal components analysis. There are many other tensor decompositions, including INDSCAL, PARAFAC2, CANDELINC, DEDICOM, and PARATUCK2 as well as nonnegative variants of all of the above. The N-way Toolbox and Tensor Toolbox, both for MATLAB, and the Multilinear Engine are examples of software packages for working with tensors.

We establish basic techniques for studying the ideals of secant varieties of Segre varieties. We solve a conjecture of Garcia, Stillman and Sturmfels on the generators of the ideal of the first secant variety in the case of three factors and solve the conjecture set-theoretically for an arbitrary number of factors. We determine the low degree components of the ideals of secant varieties of small dimension in a few cases.

Abstract. A symmetric tensor is a higher order generalization of a symmetric matrix. In this paper, we study various properties of symmetric tensors in relation to a decomposition into a symmetric sum of outer product of vectors. A rank-1 order-k tensor is the outer product of k non-zero vectors. Any symmetric tensor can be decomposed into a linear combination of rank-1 tensors, each of them being symmetric or not. The rank of a symmetric tensor is the minimal number of rank-1 tensors that is necessary to reconstruct it. The symmetric rank is obtained when the constituting rank-1 tensors are imposed to be themselves symmetric. It is shown that rank and symmetric rank are equal in a number of cases, and that they always exist in an algebraically closed field. We will discuss the notion of the generic symmetric rank, which, due to the work of Alexander and Hirschowitz, is now known for any values of dimension and order. We will also show that the set of symmetric tensors of symmetric rank at most r is not closed, unless r = 1. Key words. Tensors, multiway arrays, outer product decomposition, symmetric outer product decomposition, candecomp, parafac, tensor rank, symmetric rank, symmetric tensor rank, generic symmetric rank, maximal symmetric rank, quantics AMS subject classifications. 15A03, 15A21, 15A72, 15A69, 15A18 1. Introduction. We

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The variety of sums of powers of a homogeneous polynomial of degree d in n variables is defined and investigated in some examples, old and new. These varieties are studied via apolarity and syzygies. Classical results (cf. [Sylvester 1851], [Hilbert 1888], [Dixon, Stuart 1906]) and some more recent results of Mukai (cf. [Mukai 1992]) are presented together with new results for the cases (n, d) = (3, 8), (4, 2), (5, 3). In the last case the variety of sums of 8 powers of a general cubic form is a Fano 5-fold of index 1 and degree 660.

This paper studies the dimension of secant varieties to Segre varieties. The problem is cast both in the setting of tensor algebra and in the setting of algebraic geometry. An inductive procedure is built around the ideas of successive specializations of points and projections. This reduces the calculation of the dimension of the secant variety in a high dimensional case to a sequence of calculations of partial secant varieties in low dimensional cases. As applications of the technique: We give a complete classification of defective t-secant varieties to Segre varieties for t ≤ 6. We generalize a theorem of Catalisano-Geramita-Gimigliano on non-defectivity of tensor powers of P n. We determine the set of p for which unbalanced Segre varieties have defective p-secant varieties. In addition, we completely describe the dimensions of the secant varieties to the deficient Segre varieties P 1 ×P 1 ×P n ×P n and P 2 × P 3 × P 3. In the final section we propose a series of conjectures about

This article consists of three parts that are largely independent of one another. The first part deals with the projective geometry of homogeneous varieties, in particular their secant and tangential varieties. It culminates with an elementary construction of the compact Hermitian symmetric spaces and the closed orbits in the projectivization of the adjoint representation of a simple Lie algebra. The second part discusses division algebras, triality, Jordan agebras and the Freudenthal magic square. The third part describes work of Deligne and Vogel inspired by knot theory and several perspectives for understanding this work.

Abstract. We survey results in algebraic complexity theory, focusing on matrix multiplication. Our goals are (i) to show how open questions in algebraic complexity theory are naturally posed as questions in geometry and representation theory, (ii) to motivate researchers to work on these questions, and (iii) to point out relations with more general problems in geometry. The key geometric objects for our study are the secant varieties of Segre varieties. We explain how these varieties are also useful for algebraic statistics, the study of phylogenetic invariants, and quantum computing.

Abstract. The construction of joins and secant varieties is studied in the combinatorial context of monomial ideals. For ideals generated by quadratic monomials, the generators of the secant ideals are obstructions to graph colorings, and this leads to a commutative algebra version of the Strong Perfect Graph Theorem. Given any projective variety and any term order, we explore whether the initial ideal of the secant ideal coincides with the secant ideal of the initial ideal. For toric varieties, this leads to the notion of delightful triangulations of convex polytopes. 1.

This paper, which expands on a talk given at the International Workshop on Fat