We study the use of spectral techniques for graph partitioning. Let G=(V,E) be a graph whose vertex set has a ``latent'' partition V_1,...,V_k. Moreover, consider a ``density matrix'' E=(E_vw)_{v,w in V} such that for v in V_i and w in V_j the entry E_{vw} is the fraction of all possible ... more >>>

We consider the following basic problem: given an $n$-variate degree-$d$ homogeneous polynomial $f$ with real coefficients, compute a unit vector $x \in \mathbb{R}^n$ that maximizes $|f(x)|$. Besides its fundamental nature, this problem arises in many diverse contexts ranging from tensor and operator norms to graph expansion to quantum information ... more >>>