On the metric basis in wheels with consecutive missing spokes

If G is a connected graph, the distance d(u, v) between two vertices u, v [member of] V(G) is the length of a shortest path between them. Let W = {[w.sub.1], [w.sub.2], ..., [w.sub.k]} be an ordered set of vertices of G and let v be a vertex of G. The representation r(v|W) of v with respect to W is the k-tuple (d(v, [w.sub.1]), d(v, [w.sub.2]), ..., d(v, [w.sub.k])). W is called a resolving set or a locating set if every vertex of G is uniquely identified by its distances from the vertices of W, or equivalently if distinct vertices of G have distinct representations with respect to W. A resolving set of minimum cardinality is called a metric basis for G and this cardinality is the metric dimension of G, denoted by [beta](G). The metric dimension of some wheel related graphs is studied recently by Siddiqui and Imran. In this paper, we study the metric dimension of wheels with k consecutive missing spokes denoted by W(n, k). We compute the exact value of the metric dimension of W(n, k) which shows that wheels with consecutive missing spokes have unbounded metric dimensions. It is natural to ask for the characterization of graphs with an unbounded metric dimension. The exchange property for resolving a set of W(n, k) has also been studied in this paper and it is shown that exchange property of the bases in a vector space does not hold for minimal resolving sets of wheels with k-consecutive missing spokes denoted by W(n, k). Keywords: metric dimension; basis; resolving set; wheel; missing spokes; exchange property Mathematics Subject Classification: 05C12