Hardness and approximation of minimum maximal matchings

In this paper, we consider the minimum maximal matching problem in some classes of graphs such as regular graphs. We show that the minimum maximal matching problem is NP-hard even in regular bipartite graphs, and a polynomial time exact algorithm is given for almost complete regular bipartite graphs. From the approximation point of view, it is well known that any maximal matching guarantees the approximation ratio of 2 but surprisingly very few improvements have been obtained. In this paper we give improved approximation ratios for several classes of graphs. For example any algorithm is shown to guarantee an approximation ratio of (2-o(1)) in graphs with high average degree. We also propose an algorithm guaranteeing for any graph of maximum degree Δ an approximation ratio of (2-1/Δ), which slightly improves the best known results. In addition, we analyse a natural linear-time greedy algorithm guaranteeing a ratio of (2-23/18k) in k-regular graphs admitting a perfect matching.