A shorter, simpler, stronger proof of the Meshalkin--Hochberg--Hirsch bounds on componentwise antichains (Q1865391)

A family \({\mathcal A}\) of subsets of an \(n\)-set is {\(r\)-chain free} if it does not contain a chain \(T_0\subset T_1\subset \cdots \subset T_r\). The authors give a short proof of the following theorem: Let \(n\geq 0\), \(r\geq 1\), \(p\geq 2\) and let \({\mathcal M}\) be a class of ordered \(p\)-partitions of an \(n\)-element set such that the \(k\)th components are \(r\)-chain free for each \(k<p\). Then (a) \(\sum_{(A_1,\ldots ,A_p)\in {\mathcal M}}1/{n\choose |A_1|,\ldots ,|A_p|}\leq r^{p-1}\) and (b) \(|{\mathcal M}|\) is at most the sum of the \(r^{p-1}\) largest \(p\)-multinomial coefficients for \(n\). The result is a generalization of a theorem of Meshkalin [\textit{L. D. Meshalkin}, Generalization of Sperner's theorem on the number of subsets of a finite set, Theor. Probab. Appl. 8, 203-204 (1963); translation from Teor. Veroyatn. Primen. 8, 219-220 (1963; Zbl 0123.36303)] which corresponds to the case \(r=1\) of (b). It also generalizes a result of Erdős (the case \(p=2\)) and its LYM version by Rota and Harper.