Prime graphical parking functions and strongly recurrent configurations of the Abelian sandpile model

This work investigates the duality between two discrete dynamical processes: parking functions, and the Abelian sandpile model (ASM). Specifically, we are interested in the extension of classical parking functions, called G-parking functions, introduced by Postnikov and Shapiro in 2004. G-parking functions are in bijection with recurrent configurations of the ASM on G. In this work, we define a notion of prime G-parking functions. These are parking functions that are in a sense "indecomposable". Our notion extends the concept of primeness for classical parking functions, as well as the notion of prime (p,q)-parking functions introduced by Armon et al. in recent work. We show that from the ASM perspective, prime G-parking functions correspond to certain configurations of the ASM, which we call strongly recurrent. We study this new connection on a number of graph families, including wheel graphs, complete graphs, complete multi-partite graphs, and complete split graphs.