University of Sydney Algebra Seminar

Joseph Landsberg (Texas A&M University)

Friday 6th August, 12.05-12.55pm, Carslaw 175

Equations for secant varieties

Secant varieties of projective varieties have a long history of study in classical algebraic geometry. There has been substantial recent interest in them because of applications to computational complexity and signal processing. For applications, one is especially interested in equations for secant varieties of Segre and Veronese varieties, as they provide tests for the complexity of a tensor (resp. symmetric tensor). I will survey the state of the art and describe recent progress with G. Ottaviani using methods from representation theory and vector bundle techniques.