Commutative rings whose zero-divisor graph is a proper refinement of a star graph

Abstract

A graph is called a proper refinement of a star graph if it is a refinement of a star graph, but it is neither a star graph nor a complete graph. For a refinement of a star graph G with center c, let Gc* be the subgraph of G induced on the vertex set V (G)\ {c or end vertices adjacent to c}. In this paper, we study the isomorphic classification of some finite commutative local rings R by investigating their zero-divisor graphs G = Γ(R), which is a proper refinement of a star graph with exactly one center c. We determine all finite commutative local rings R such that Gc* has at least two connected components. We prove that the diameter of the induced graph Gc* is two if Z(R)2 ≠ {0}, Z(R)3 = {0} and Gc* is connected. We determine the structure of R which has two distinct nonadjacent vertices α, β ∈ Z(R)* \ {c} such that the ideal [N(α) ∩ N(β)]∪ {0} is generated by only one element of Z(R)*\{c}. We also completely determine the correspondence between commutative rings and finite complete graphs Kn with some end vertices adjacent to a single vertex of Kn.