About the maximal rank of 3-tensors over the real and the complex number field

Abstract

Tensor data are becoming important recently in various application fields. In this paper, we consider the maximal rank problem of 3-tensors and extend Atkinson and Stephens’ and Atkinson and Lloyd’s results over the real number field. We also prove the assertion of Atkinson and Stephens: ${{\rm max.rank}_{\mathbb{R}}(m,n,p) \leq m+\lfloor p/2\rfloor n}$, ${{\rm max.rank}_{\mathbb{R}}(n,n,p) \leq (p+1)n/2}$ if p is even, ${{\rm max.rank}_{\mathbb{F}}(n,n,3)\leq 2n-1}$ if ${\mathbb{F}=\mathbb{C}}$ or n is odd, and ${{\rm max.rank}_{\mathbb{F}}(m,n,3)\leq m+n-1}$ if m < n where ${\mathbb{F}}$ stands for ${\mathbb{R}}$ or ${\mathbb{C}}$.