CS138A Maximum Bipartite Matching Peter Schröder

CS138A Matching Definition given an undirected graph G=(V,E) a matching is a subset M of E such that for all vertices v in V at most one edge of M is incident on v a maximum matching is a matching of maximal cardinality here we will look at matchings in bipartite graphs (definition)

CS138A Finding Maximal Match Corresponding flow network given an undirected bipartite graph G=(V,E) the corresponding flow network G’=(V’,E’) is found as: V’=V+{s,t}, E’ contains all edges of E and new edges connecting s to L and R to t; each edge in E’ has unit capacity

CS138A Flow Network Matchings and maximal flows Lemma 10: Let G=(V,E) be a bipartite graph with corresponding flow network G’; if M is a matching in G then there is an integer valued flow f in G’ with value |f|=|M| and vice versa Theorem 11 (Integrality Theorem): if the capacity function c takes on only integral values then Ford-Fulkerson will yield |f| which is integer valued; moreover f(u,v) will be an integer for all u,v in V

CS138A Flow Network Matchings and maximal flows Corollary 12: the cardinality of a maximum matching in a bipartite graph G is the value of a maximum flow in its corresponding flow network G’ Complexity cardinality of M at most min(L,R)=O(V); the value of the maximum flow in G’ is O(V) hence total time O(VE)