Sums of squares, Hankel index and almost real rank

The Hankel index of a real variety X is an invariant that quantifies the difference between nonnegative quadrics and sums of squares on X. In [5], the authors proved an intriguing bound on the Hankel index in terms of the Green–Lazarsfeld index, which measures the ‘linearity’ of the minimal free resolution of the ideal of X. In all previously known cases, this bound was tight. We provide the first class of examples where the bound is not tight; in fact, the difference between Hankel index and Green–Lazarsfeld index can be arbitrarily large. Our examples are outer projections of rational normal curves, where we identify the center of projection with a binary form F. The Green–Lazarsfeld index of the projected curve is given by the complex Waring border rank of F [16]. We show that the Hankel index is given by the almost real rank of F, which is a new notion that comes from decomposing F as a sum of powers of almost real forms. Finally, we determine the range of possible and typical almost real ranks for binary forms.