  A key insight from statistical physics about spin systems on random graphs is
the central role played by Gibbs measures on trees. We determine the local weak
limit of the hardcore model on random regular graphs asymptotically until just
below its condensation threshold, showing that it converges in probability
locally in a strong sense to the free boundary condition Gibbs measure on the
tree. As a consequence we show that the reconstruction threshold on the random
graph, indicative of the onset of point to set spatial correlations, is equal
to the reconstruction threshold on the $d$-regular tree for which we determine
precise asymptotics. We expect that our methods will generalize to a wide range
of spin systems for which the second moment method holds.
