Distances in zero-divisor and total graphs from commutative rings-A survey

There are so many ways to construct graphs from algebraic structures. Most popular constructions are Cayley graphs, commuting graphs and non-commuting graphs from finite groups and zero-divisor graphs and total graphs from commutative rings. For a commutative ring R with non-zero identity, we denote the set of zero-divisors and unit elements of R by Z(R) and U(R), respectively. One of the associated graphs to a ring R is the zero-divisor graph; it is a simple graph with vertex set Z(R)∖{0}, and two vertices x and y are adjacent if and only if xy=0. This graph was first introduced by Beck, where all the elements of R are considered as the vertices. Anderson and Badawi, introduced the total graph of R, as the simple graph with all elements of R as vertices, and two distinct vertices x and y are adjacent if and only if x+y∈Z(R). For a given graph G, the concept of connectedness, diameter and girth are always of great interest. Several authors extensively studied about the zero-divisor and total graphs from commutative rings. In this paper, we present a survey of results obtained with regard to distances in zero-divisor and total graphs.