Commutative Rings Whose Cozero-Divisor Graphs are Unicyclic or of Bounded Degree

Abstract

Let R be a commutative ring with unity. The cozero-divisor graph of R, denoted by Γ′(R), is a graph with vertex set W*(R), where W*(R) is the set of all nonzero and nonunit elements of R, and two distinct vertices a and b are adjacent if and only if a ∉ Rb and b ∉ Ra, where Rc is the ideal generated by the element c in R. Recently, it has been proved that for every nonlocal finite ring R, Γ′(R) is a unicyclic graph if and only if R ≅ ℤ2 × ℤ4, ℤ3 × ℤ3, ℤ2 × ℤ2[x]/(x 2). We generalize the aforementioned result by showing that for every commutative ring R, Γ′(R) is a unicyclic graph if and only if R ≅ ℤ2 × ℤ4, ℤ3 × ℤ3, ℤ2 × ℤ2[x]/(x 2), ℤ2[x, y]/(x, y)2, ℤ4[x]/(2x, x 2). We prove that for every positive integer Δ, the set of all commutative nonlocal rings with maximum degree at most Δ is finite. Also, we classify all rings whose cozero-divisor graph has maximum degree 3. Among other results, it is shown that for every commutative ring R, gr(Γ′(R)) ∈ {3, 4, ∞}.