The partition dimension of a graph (Q1972857)

An ordered partition of the vertices of a graph \(G\) is resolving if all vertices have distinct vectors of distances to the partition classes. The partition dimension pd\((G)\) of \(G\) is the smallest size of a resolving partition. This turns out to be at most 1 more than the metric dimension, obtained similarly, after substituting partitions by subsets, but that graphs exist with partition (resp. metric) dimensions \(a\) and \(b\) as soon as \(b+1 < 2a \leq 2b+2\). It is shown that pd\((G)=2\) only for paths, pd\((G)=|V(G)|\) only for complete graphs, and a full characterization is obtained for the graphs with pd\((G)=|V(G)|-1\).