Commuting Graphs of Group Algebras

The commuting graph of a ring R, denoted by Γ(R), is a graph of all whose vertices are noncentral elements of R, and 2 distinct vertices x and y are adjacent if and only if xy = yx. In this article we investigate some graph-theoretic properties of Γ(kG), where G is a finite group, k is a field, and 0 ≠ |G| ∈k. Among other results it is shown that if G is a finite nonabelian group and k is an algebraically closed field, then Γ(kG) is not connected if and only if |G| = 6 or 8. For an arbitrary field k, we prove that Γ(kG) is connected if G is a nonabelian finite simple group or G′ ≠ G″ and G″ ≠ 1.