Representation of a rational number as a sum of ninth or higher odd powers

Abstract

In the present paper, we substantially generalize one of the results obtained in our earlier paper [RM]. We present a solution of a problem of Waring type: if $F(x_1, \dots ,x_N)$ is a~symmetric form of odd degree $n\ge 9$ in $N=16\cdot 2^{n-9}$ variables, then for any $q\in \mathbb{Q}$, $q\neq 0$, the equation $F(x_i)=q$ has rational parametric solutions, that depend on $n-8$ parameters.