Tight lower bounds on the matching number in a graph with given maximum degree

Abstract

Let $k \geq 3$. We prove the following three bounds for the matching number, $\alpha'(G)$, of a graph, $G$, of order $n$ size $m$ and maximum degree at most $k$. If $k$ is odd, then $\alpha'(G) \ge \left( \frac{k-1}{k(k^2 - 3)} \right) n \, + \, \left( \frac{k^2 - k - 2}{k(k^2 - 3)} \right) m \, - \, \frac{k-1}{k(k^2 - 3)}$. If $k$ is even, then $\alpha'(G) \ge \frac{n}{k(k+1)} \, + \, \frac{m}{k+1} - \frac{1}{k}$. If $k$ is even, then $\alpha'(G) \ge \left( \frac{k+2}{k^2+k+2} \right) m \, - \, \left( \frac{k-2}{k^2+k+2} \right) n \, - \frac{k+2}{k^2+k+2}$. In this paper we actually prove a slight strengthening of the above for which the bounds are tight for essentially all densities of graphs. The above three bounds are in fact powerful enough to give a complete description of the set $L_k$ of pairs $(\gamma,\beta)$ of real numbers with the following property. There exists a constant $K$ such that $\alpha'(G) \geq \gamma n + \beta m - K$ for every connected graph $G$ with maximum degree at most~$k$, where $n$ and $m$ denote the number of vertices and the number of edges, respectively, in $G$. We show that $L_k$ is a convex set. Further, if $k$ is odd, then $L_k$ is the intersection of two closed half-spaces, and there is exactly one extreme point of $L_k$, while if $k$ is even, then $L_k$ is the intersection of three closed half-spaces, and there are precisely two extreme points of $L_k$.