Generic and typical ranks of multi-way arrays

The concept of tensor rank was introduced in the 20s. In the 70s, when methods of Component Analysis on arrays with more than two indices became popular, tensor rank became a much studied topic. The generic rank may be seen as an upper bound to the number of factors that are needed to construct a random tensor. We explain in this paper how to obtain numerically in the complex field the generic rank of tensors of arbitrary dimensions, based on Terracini’s lemma, and compare it with the algebraic results already known in the real or complex fields. In particular, we examine the cases of symmetric tensors, tensors with symmetric matrix slices, complex tensors enjoying Hermitian symmetries, or merely tensors with free entries.