Matchings on infinite graphs

We prove that the local weak convergence of a sequence of graphs is enough to guarantee the convergence of their normalized matching numbers. The limiting quantity is described by a local recursion defined on the weak limit of the graph sequence. However, this recursion may admit several solutions, implying non-trivial long-range dependencies between the edges of a largest matching. We overcome this lack of correlation decay by introducing a perturbative parameter called the temperature, which we let progressively go to zero. When the local weak limit is a unimodular Galton-Watson tree, the recursion simplifies into a distributional equation, resulting into an explicit formula that considerably extends the well-known one by Karp and Sipser for Erdős-Rényi random graphs.