First published in Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 146 (2018), 3321-3332, published by the American Mathematical Society

We show that for all $ d\in \{3,\ldots ,n-1\}$ the size of the largest component of a random $ d$-regular graph on $ n$ vertices around the percolation threshold $ p=1/(d-1)$ is $ \Theta (n^{2/3})$, with high probability. This extends known results for fixed $ d\geq 3$ and for $ d=n-1$, confirming a prediction of Nachmias and Peres on a question of Benjamini. As a corollary, for the largest component of the percolated random $ d$-regular graph, we also determine the diameter and the mixing time of the lazy random walk. In contrast to previous approaches, our proof is based on a simple application of the switching method