Rings whose associated extended zero-divisor graphs are complemented (Q6589634)

Let \(R\) a commutative ring with identity and \(Z(R)\) its set of zero-divisors. Recall that the zero-divisor graph, denoted by \(\Gamma(R)\), is the simple graph whose vertex set is the set of nonzero zero-divisors, \(Z(R)^{*}\), and two distinct vertices \(x\) and \(y\) are adjacent if and only if \(xy = 0\). The extended zero-divisor graph, denoted by \(\overline{\Gamma}(R)\), is the simple graph which has the same vertex set like \(\Gamma(R)\) and two distinct vertices x and y are adjacent if and only if \(x^{n}y^{m} = 0\) with \(x^{n} \not= 0\) and \(y^{m} \not= 0\) for some positive integers \(n\) and \(m\). A graph \(G = (V,E)\) is said to be complemented if every vertex \(v\) has an orthogonal; that is, an adjacent vertex \(u\) to \(v\) such that the edge \(v-u\) is not a part of a triangle. The graph \(G\) is said to be uniquely complemented if it is complemented and, for any three vertices \(u, v, w \in V\) , if \(v\) is orthogonal to both \(u\) and \(w\), then \(u\sim w\), where \(\sim\) is the equivalence relation on \(G\) given by \(u\sim w\) if their open neighborhoods coincide. The paper under review deals with complementedness and uniquely complementedness notions of graphs. Among others, the authors proved that for a commutative ring \(R\) such that \(|Z(R)|\geq 4\), if \(\Gamma(R)\) is complemented, then \(|Nil(R)|\leq 2\). For a finite ring \(R\) such that \(\Gamma(R) \not= \overline{\Gamma}(R)\), \(\Gamma(R)\) is complemented if and only if \(R\simeq B\times A_{1} \times\dots\times A_{n}\) such that \(B\cong \mathbb{Z}_{4}\) or \(\mathbb{Z}_{2}[X]/(X^{2})\) and \(A_{1}, \dots, A_{n}\) are finite fields. Other results on the extended zero-divisor graph of a finite direct product of rings as well as the one of an idealization of an R-module are given.