A Functorial Version of Chevalley's Theorem on Constructible Sets

Abstract

To determine whether an $n\times n$-matrix has rank at most $r$ it suffices to check that the $(r+1)\times (r+1)$-minors have rank at most $r$. In other words, to describe the set of $n\times n$-matrices with the property of having rank at most $r$, we only need the description of the corresponding subset of $(r+1)\times (r+1)$-matrices. We will generalize this observation to a large class of subsets of tensor spaces. A description of certain subsets of a high-dimensional tensor space can always be pulled back from a description of the corresponding subset in a fixed lower-dimensional tensor space.