How many components of an antisymmetric rank five tensor on $ \mathbb{R}^5 $ are independent?

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How many components of the a rank five tensor on $\mathbb{R}^5$ which is antisymetric under exchange of any pair of indices are independent?

If we write the tensor $E_{i_1i_2i_3i_4i_5}$ then there are $5!$ permutations of the indices which result in a none zero value. I'm not sure how I then account for the degeneracy due to the negative sign picked up in an exchange of indices.

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What you seem to be calling rank is what is usually called degree or order. The term rank is usually reserved for another quantity related to a tensor.

If $E$ is an order five tensor on $\mathbb{R}^5$, then for each choice of $i_1, i_2, i_3, i_4, i_5 \in \{1, 2, 3, 4, 5\}$, we have a corresponding component $E_{i_1i_2i_3i_4i_5}$ which is a real number. However, if $E$ is antisymmetric in each of its indices (we usually just say that $E$ is antisymmetric or skew-symmetric), then if we swap two indices, we multiply the component by $-1$. So, for example, we see that $E_{13452} = -E_{13425}$, and hence one of these components determines the other. By repeatedly using the skew-symmetry, I claim that $E_{i_1i_2i_3i_4i_5}$ is determined by the components with the indices $i_1, i_2, i_3, i_4, i_5$ in increasing order. For example,

$$E_{13452} = - E_{13425} = E_{13245} = -E_{12345},$$

so $E_{12345}$ determines $E_{13452}$. What about if two indices are the same? Then I claim the resulting component is zero. For example, $E_{11345} = -E_{11345}$ by interchanging the first two indices. But $E_{11345}$ is a real number; the only real number which is equal to its negative is zero, so $E_{11345} = 0$. So we see that all of the components are determined by the components $E_{i_1i_2i_3i_4i_5}$ where the indices are strictly increasing (i.e. $i_1 < i_2 < i_3 < i_4 < i_5$). As $i_1, i_2, i_3, i_4, i_5 \in \{1, 2, 3, 4, 5\}$, there is only one such component, namely $E_{12345}$.

In summary, an antisymmetric order $5$ tensor on $\mathbb{R}^5$ has one independent component. In particular, such a tensor is uniquely determined by a component with distinct indices.

By a similar argument, we see that the number of independent components of an antisymmetric order $k$ tensor on $\mathbb{R}^n$ is $\binom{n}{k}$.