Exact and Asymptotic Results on Coarse Ricci Curvature of Graphs

Abstract: Ricci curvature was proposed by Ollivier in a general framework of metric measure spaces, and it has been studied extensively in the context of graphs in recent years. In this paper we prove upper bounds for Ollivier's Ricci curvature for bipartite graphs and for the graphs with girth at least 5. We also prove a general lower bound on the Ricci curvature in terms of the size of the maximum matching in an appropriate subgraph. As a consequence, we characterize the Ricci-flat graphs of girth 5. Moreover, using our general lower bound and the Birkhoff-von Neumann theorem, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the structure of Ricci-flat regular graphs of girth 4. Finally, we obtain the asymptotic Ricci curvature of random bipartite graphs $G(n,n, p)$ and random graphs $G(n, p)$, in various regimes of $p$.