Maximum Matching on Regular Nonbipartite Graphs

Abstract

Blocking flow-type maximum matching algorithms are based on finding maximal sets of shortest augmenting paths. They run in $O(m\sqrt{n})$ time, on both bipartite [HK73, Din70, Kar73a, Kar73a] and nonbipartite graphs [GT91, Gab17, Vaz24], but this time bound can be improved if the input is constrained. In this paper we consider $d$-regular bipartite and nonbipartite graphs. Previous algorithms show that a perfect matching in $d$-regular bipartite graphs can be computed in near-linear time deterministically [COS01] or sublinear time with high probability [GKK13]. On $d$-regular non-bipartite graphs, a $(1-1/(d+1))$-approximation can be computed in sublinear time $O(n \log n)$ with high probability [DH25], and hence a maximum matching can be computed in $O(n^2)$ time, w.h.p., which is slightly faster than the best deterministic algorithm for regular graphs [Yus13], running in O(n^2 log n) time. We prove that any blocking flow-type maximum matching algorithm based on finding shortest augmenting paths runs in $O(n^2)$ time on d-regular graphs, both bipartite and nonbipartite. On nonbipartite graphs this is an asymptotic improvement over $O(n^2 \log n)$ [Yus13] and an improvement over $O(m\sqrt{n})$ [GT91, Gab17, Vaz24] when $d = ω(\sqrt{n})$. It also improves [DH25] by making its $O(n^2)$ bound deterministic. However, the main take-away message is that no new algorithms are needed: the "classic" matching algorithms automatically outperform [Yus13, DH25]. We also consider extensions of our results to graphs that are only "nearly regular," meaning that their degrees all lie within a specified range, $[d, Δ]$.