On the Falk invariant of hyperplane arrangements attached to gain graphs

The fundamental group of the complement of a hyperplane arrangement in a complex vector space is an important topological invariant. The third rank of successive quotients in the lower central series of the fundamental group was called Falk invariant of the arrangement since Falk gave the first formula and asked to give a combinatorial interpretation. In this article, we give a combinatorial formula for the Falk invariant of hyperplane arrangements attached to certain gain graphs.