We prove that there exist bipartite Ramanujan graphs of every degree and every number of vertices. The proof is based on an analysis of the expected characteristic polynomial of a union of random perfect matchings and involves three ingredients: (1) a formula for the expected characteristic polynomial of the sum of a regular graph with a random permutation of another regular graph, (2) a proof that this expected polynomial is real-rooted and that the family of polynomials considered in this sum is an interlacing family, and (3) strong bounds on the roots of the expected characteristic polynomial of a union of random perfect matchings, established using the framework of finite free convolutions introduced recently by the authors.

We prove that there exist bipartite Ramanujan graphs of every degree and every number of vertices. The proof is based on analyzing the expected characteristic polynomial of a union of random perfect matchings, and involves three ingredients: (1) a formula for the expected characteristic polynomial of the sum of a regular graph with a random permutation of another regular graph, (2) a proof that this expected polynomial is real rooted and that the family of polynomials considered in this sum is an interlacing family, and (3) strong bounds on the roots of the expected characteristic polynomial of a union of random perfect matchings, established using the framework of finite free convolutions introduced recently by the authors.

We prove that there exist infinite families of regular bipartite Ramanujan graphs of every degree bigger than 2. We do this by proving a variant of a conjecture of Bilu and Linial about the existence of good 2-lifts of every graph. We also establish the existence of infinite families of `irregular Ramanujan' graphs, whose eigenvalues are bounded by the spectral radius of their universal cover. Such families were conjectured to exist by Linial and others. In particular, we prove the existence of infinite families of (c, d)-biregular bipartite graphs with all non-trivial eigenvalues bounded by √c-1+√d-1, for all c, d ≥ q 3. Our proof exploits a new technique for demonstrating the existence of useful combinatorial objects that we call the "method of interlacing polynomials".