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Geometric Complexity Theory as initiated by Mulmuley and Sohoni in two papers (SIAM J Comput 2001, 2008) aims to separate algebraic complexity classes via representation theoretic multiplicities in coordinate rings of specific group varieties. We provide the first toy setting in which a separation can be achieved for a family of polynomials via these multiplicities. Mulmuley and Sohoni’s papers also conjecture that the vanishing behavior of multiplicities would be sufficient to separate complexity classes (so-called occurrence obstructions). The existence of such strong occurrence obstructions has been recently disproven in 2016 in two successive papers, Ikenmeyer-Panova (Adv. Math.) and Bürgisser-Ikenmeyer-Panova (J. AMS). This raises the question whether separating group varieties via representation theoretic multiplicities is stronger than separating them via occurrences. We provide first finite settings where a separation via multiplicities can be achieved, while the separation via occurrences is provably impossible. These settings are surprisingly simple and natural: We study the variety of products of homogeneous linear forms (the so-called Chow variety) and the variety of polynomials of bounded border Waring rank (i.e. a higher secant variety of the Veronese variety). As a side result we prove a slight generalization of Hermite’s reciprocity theorem, which proves Foulkes' conjecture for a new infinite family of cases.
@InProceedings{dorfler_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2019.51,
author = {D\"{o}rfler, Julian and Ikenmeyer, Christian and Panova, Greta},
title = {{On Geometric Complexity Theory: Multiplicity Obstructions Are Stronger Than Occurrence Obstructions}},
booktitle = {46th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2019)},
pages = {51:1--51:14},
series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
ISBN = {978-3-95977-109-2},
ISSN = {1868-8969},
year = {2019},
volume = {132},
editor = {Baier, Christel and Chatzigiannakis, Ioannis and Flocchini, Paola and Leonardi, Stefano},
publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
address = {Dagstuhl, Germany},
URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2019.51},
URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-106276},
doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2019.51},
annote = {Keywords: Algebraic complexity theory, geometric complexity theory, Waring rank, plethysm coefficients, occurrence obstructions, multiplicity obstructions}
}