Metric and upper dimension of zero divisor graphs associated to commutative rings

Abstract Let R be a commutative ring with Z*(R) as the set of non-zero zero divisors. The zero divisor graph of R, denoted by Γ(R), is the graph whose vertex set is Z*(R), where two distinct vertices x and y are adjacent if and only if xy = 0. In this paper, we investigate the metric dimension dim(Γ(R)) and upper dimension dim+(Γ(R)) of zero divisor graphs of commutative rings. For zero divisor graphs Γ(R) associated to finite commutative rings R with unity 1 ≠ 0, we conjecture that dim+(Γ(R)) = dim(Γ(R)), with one exception that R≅Π𝕑2n {\rm{R}} \cong \Pi {\rm\mathbb{Z}}_2^{\rm{n}} , n ≥ 4. We prove that this conjecture is true for several classes of rings. We also provide combinatorial formulae for computing the metric and upper dimension of zero divisor graphs of certain classes of commutative rings besides giving bounds for the upper dimension of zero divisor graphs of rings.