Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

Abstract: Tensors are direct generalizations of matrices. They appear in almost every branch of mathematics and engineering. Three of the most important problems about tensors are: 1) compute the rank of a tensor 2) decompose a tensor into a sum of rank one tensors 3) Comon’s conjecture for symmetric tensors. In this talk, I will try to convince the audience that algebra can be used to study tensors. Examples for this purpose include structured matrix decomposition problem, bilinear complexity problem, tensor networks states, Hankel tensors and tensor eigenvalue problems. In these examples, I will explain how algebraic tools are used to answer the three problems mentioned above.