Lower matching conjecture, and a new proof of Schrijver's and Gurvits's theorems

Abstract

Friedland's Lower Matching Conjecture asserts that if $G$ is a $d$--regular bipartite graph on $v(G)=2n$ vertices, and $m_k(G)$ denotes the number of matchings of size $k$, then $$m_k(G)\geq {n \choose k}^2\left(\frac{d-p}{d}\right)^{n(d-p)}(dp)^{np},$$ where $p=\frac{k}{n}$. When $p=1$, this conjecture reduces to a theorem of Schrijver which says that a $d$--regular bipartite graph on $v(G)=2n$ vertices has at least $$\left(\frac{(d-1)^{d-1}}{d^{d-2}}\right)^n$$ perfect matchings. L. Gurvits proved an asymptotic version of the Lower Matching Conjecture, namely he proved that $$\frac{\ln m_k(G)}{v(G)}\geq \frac{1}{2}\left(p\ln \left(\frac{d}{p}\right)+(d-p)\ln \left(1-\frac{p}{d}\right)-2(1-p)\ln (1-p)\right)+o_{v(G)}(1).$$ In this paper, we prove the Lower Matching Conjecture. In fact, we will prove a slightly stronger statement which gives an extra $c_p\sqrt{n}$ factor compared to the conjecture if $p$ is separated away from $0$ and $1$, and is tight up to a constant factor if $p$ is separated away from $1$. We will also give a new proof of Gurvits's and Schrijver's theorems, and we extend these theorems to $(a,b)$--biregular bipartite graphs.