Critical groups of graphs with reflective symmetry

Abstract

The critical group of a graph is a finite abelian group whose order is the number of spanning forests of the graph. For a graph G with a certain reflective symmetry, we generalize a result of Ciucu-Yan-Zhang factorizing the spanning tree number of G by interpreting this as a result about the critical group of G. Our result takes the form of an exact sequence, and explicit connections to bicycle spaces are made.