Multiple harmonic sums and Wolstenholme's theorem

Abstract: We give a family of congruences for the binomial coefficients ${kp-1\choose p-1}$ in terms of multiple harmonic sums, a generalization of the harmonic numbers. Each congruence in this family (which depends on an additional parameter $n$) involves a linear combination of $n$ multiple harmonic sums, and holds $\mod{p^{2n+3}}$. The coefficients in these congruences are integers depending on $n$ and $k$, but independent of $p$. More generally, we construct a family of congruences for ${kp-1\choose p-1} \mod{p^{2n+3}}$, whose members contain a variable number of terms, and show that in this family there is a unique "optimized" congruence involving the fewest terms. The special case $k=2$ and $n=0$ recovers Wolstenholme's theorem ${2p-1\choose p-1}\equiv 1\mod{p^3}$, valid for all primes $p\geq 5$. We also characterize those triples $(n, k, p)$ for which the optimized congruence holds modulo an extra power of $p$: they are precisely those with either $p$ dividing the numerator of the Bernoulli number $B_{p-2n-k}$, or $k \equiv 0, 1 \mod p$.