Sharp lower bounds on the fractional matching number

A fractional matching of a graph G is a function f from E(G) to the interval [0,1] such that \sum_{e\in\Gamma(v)}f(e) \le 1 for each v\in V(G), where \Gamma(v) is the set of edges incident to v. The fractional matching number of G, written \alpha'_*(G), is the maximum of \sum_{e\in E(G)}f(e) over all fractional matchings f. For G with n vertices, m edges, positive minimum degree d, and maximum degree D, we prove \alpha'_*(G) \ge \max\{m/D, n-m/d, d n/(D+d)\}. For the first two bounds, equality holds if and only if each component of G is r-regular or is bipartite with all vertices in one part having degree r, where r=D for the first bound and r=d for the second. Equality holds in the third bound if and only if G is regular or is (d,D)-biregular