On graphs related to co-maximal ideals of a commutative ring

Abstract

This paper studies the co-maximal graph $\Om(R)$, the induced subgraph $\G(R)$ of $\Om(R)$ whose vertex set is $R\setminus (U(R)\cup J(R))$ and a retract $\G_r(R)$ of $\G(R)$, where $R$ is a commutative ring. We show that the core of $\G(R)$ is a union of triangles and rectangles, while a vertex in $\G(R)$ is either an end vertex or a vertex in the core. For a non-local ring $R$, we prove that both the chromatic number and clique number of $\G(R)$ are identical with the number of maximal ideals of $R$. A graph $\G_r(R)$ is also introduced on the vertex set $\{Rx|x\in R\setminus (U(R)\cup J(R))\}$, and graph properties of $\G_r(R)$ are studied.

14pages, 4 figures