Statistics on Multisets

Abstract: We offer a new proof that a certain q-analogue of multinomial coeffi- cients furnishes a q-counting of the set of permutations of an associated multiset of positive integers, according to the number of inversions in such arrangements. Our proof uses the fact that such q-multinomial coefficients enumerate certain classes of chains of subspaces of a fnite dimensional vector space over a fnite field of cardinality q. Additionally, we investigate the function that counts the number of permutations of a multiset having a fixed number of inversions.