A 1-factorization of a graph G is a partitioning of its edges into perfect matchings. Clearly, if a graph G admits a 1-factorization then it must be regular, and the converse is easily verified to be false. In the special case where G is bipartite, it is an easy exercise to show that G has a 1-factorization, and observe that a 1-factorization corresponds to a partial Latin Square.  

In this talk we survey known results/conjectures regarding the existence and the number of 1-factorizations in graphs and the related problem about the existence of a proper edge coloring of a graph with exactly \Delta(G) colors.  Moreover, we prove that every `nice' d-regular pseudorandom graph has a 1-factorization. In particular, as a corollary, we obtain that for every d=\omega(1), a random d-regular graph typically has a 1-factorization.  This extends and completely solves a problem of Molloy, Robalewska, Robinson, and Wormald  (showed it for all constant d greater than or equal to 3).

Joint with: Vishesh Jain (PhD student in MIT).