The metric chromatic number of zero divisor graph of a ring \(\mathrm{Z_n} \) (Q2693283)

Summary: Let \(\Gamma\) be a nontrivial connected graph, \(c:V\left( \Gamma\right)\longrightarrow\mathbb{N}\) be a vertex colouring of \(\Gamma \), and \(L_i\) be the colouring classes that resulted, where \(i=1,2,\dots,k\). A metric colour code for a vertex \(a\) of a graph \(\Gamma\) is \(c\left( a\right)=\left( d \left( a, L_1\right), d \left( a, L_2\right), \dots, d \left( a, L_n\right)\right)\), where \(d\left( a, L_i\right)\) is the minimum distance between vertex \(a\) and vertex \(b\) in \(L_i\). If \(c\left( a\right)\neq c\left( b\right)\), for any adjacent vertices \(a\) and \(b\) of \(\Gamma \), then \(c\) is called a metric colouring of \(\Gamma\) as well as the smallest number \(k\) satisfies this definition which is said to be the metric chromatic number of a graph \(\Gamma\) and symbolized \(\mu\left( \Gamma\right)\). In this work, we investigated a metric colouring of a graph \(\Gamma\left( Z_n\right)\) and found the metric chromatic number of this graph, where \(\Gamma\left( Z_n\right)\) is the zero-divisor graph of ring \(Z_n\).