Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal Volume 14 Issue 2 Article 11 Directed Graphs of Commutative Rings Seth Hausken University of St. Thomas,
[email protected] Jared Skinner University of St. Thomas,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.rose-hulman.edu/rhumj Recommended Citation Hausken, Seth and Skinner, Jared (2013) "Directed Graphs of Commutative Rings," Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal: Vol. 14 : Iss. 2 , Article 11. Available at: https://scholar.rose-hulman.edu/rhumj/vol14/iss2/11 Rose- Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal Directed Graphs of Commutative Rings Seth Hausken a Jared Skinnerb Volume 14, no. 2, Fall 2013 Sponsored by Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Department of Mathematics Terre Haute, IN 47803 a Email:
[email protected] University of St. Thomas b http://www.rose-hulman.edu/mathjournal University of St. Thomas Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal Volume 14, no. 2, Fall 2013 Directed Graphs of Commutative Rings Seth Hausken Jared Skinner Abstract. The directed graph of a commutative ring is a graph representation of its additive and multiplicative structure. Using the mapping (a; b) ! (a + b; a · b) one can create a directed graph for every finite, commutative ring. We examine the properties of directed graphs of commutative rings, with emphasis on the informa- tion the graph gives about the ring. Acknowledgements: We would like to acknowledge the University of St. Thomas for making this research possible and Dr. Michael Axtell for his guidance throughout. Page 168 RHIT Undergrad. Math. J., Vol. 14, no. 2 1 Introduction When studying group theory, especially early on in such an exploration, Cayley tables are used to give a simple visual representation to the structure of the group.