A length-width inequality for partially ordered sets with two-element cutsets (Q1124616)

Let P be a finite poset and \(x\in P\). A cutset for x is each set \(C\subseteq P\) such that (i) \(x\| C\) (that is, x is noncomparable with a for \(a\in C)\) and (ii) every maximal chain in P intersects \(C\cup \{x\}\). A poset P has the m-cutset property if every element of P has a cutset with at most m elements. Let w(P) denote the width of the poset P and let \(\ell (P)\) denote the number of elements of the largest chain in P. The connections between w(P) and \(\ell (P)\) are studied in the paper. It is proved (Theorem 1) that if P is a finite poset with the 2-cutset property, then \(\ell (P)\geq w(P)-2\), and that this result is best possible. A similar inequality is also given for posets with the m-cutset property for \(m>2\).