The set of forms with bounded strength is not closed

Abstract

The strength of a homogeneous polynomial (or form) is the smallest length of an additive decomposition expressing it whose summands are reducible forms. Using polynomial functors, we show that the set of forms with bounded strength is not always Zariski-closed. More specifically, if the ground field is algebraically closed, we prove that the set of quartics with strength $\le 3$ is not Zariski-closed for a large number of variables.