English

On a conjecture on $k$-antichains in the unit $n$-cube

Combinatorics 2026-06-26 v1 Classical Analysis and ODEs

Abstract

Let [0,1]nRn[0, 1]^{n} \subseteq \mathbb{R}^{n} be endowed with its pointwise order, and let kk be a positive integer. A subset AA of [0,1]n[0, 1]^{n} is said to be a \emph{kk-antichain} if card(AC)k\operatorname{card}(A \cap C) \leq k for each chain C[0,1]nC \subseteq [0, 1]^{n}. Letting Hm\mathcal{H}^{m} denote the mm-dimensional Hausdorff outer measure, Pelekis and Vlas\'{a}k [Publ.\ Math.\ Debrecen, 2020] conjectured that there exists a kk-antichain A[0,1]nA \subseteq [0, 1]^{n} satisfying Hn1(A)=kn\mathcal{H}^{n-1}(A) = k n, and proved the special case of this conjecture for n=2n = 2, whereas Janzer [Mathematika, 2020] proved the k=1k = 1 case of Pelekis and Vlas\'{a}k's conjecture. This conjecture is motivated by a result due to Erd\H{o}s on kk-antichains in {0,1}n\{ 0, 1 \}^{n}. We prove Pelekis and Vlas\'{a}k's conjecture in full generality, thus establishing that their upper bound Hn1(A)kn\mathcal{H}^{n-1}(A) \leq k n is sharp for kk-antichains AA in [0,1]n[0, 1]^{n}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2606.28606,
  title  = {On a conjecture on $k$-antichains in the unit $n$-cube},
  author = {John M. Campbell},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2606.28606},
  year   = {2026}
}