Fields of cohomological dimension one versus C_1-fields

Abstract

Ax gave examples of fields of cohomological dimension 1 which are not C_1-fields. Kato and Kuzumaki asked whether a weak form of the C_1-property holds for all fields of cohomological dimension 1 (existence of solutions in extensions of coprime degree rather than existence of a solution in the ground field). Using work of Merkur'ev and Suslin, and of Rost, D. Madore and I produced examples which show that the answer is in the negative. In the present note, I produce examples which require less work than the original ones. In the original paper, some of the examples were given by forms of degree 3 in 4 variables. Here, for an arbitrary prime p>3, I use forms of degree p in p+1 variables.