Degrees of Kalman varieties of tensors

Abstract

Kalman varieties of tensors are algebraic varieties consisting of tensors whose singular vector k-tuples lay on prescribed subvarieties. They were first studied by Ottaviani and Sturmfels in the context of matrices. We extend recent results of Ottaviani and the first author to the partially symmetric setting. We describe a generating function whose coefficients are the degrees of these varieties and we analyze its asymptotics, providing analytic results à la Zeilberger and Pantone. We emphasize the special role of isotropic vectors in the spectral theory of tensors and describe the totally isotropic Kalman variety as a dual variety.