Mirror duality and string-theoretic Hodge numbers (Q1923261)

Due to the earlier fundamental work of the first author, there is a bijective correspondence between Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces in Gorenstein toric Fano varieties and certain reflexive polyhedra [cf. \textit{V. V. Batyrev}, J. Algebr. Geom. 3, No. 3, 493-535 (1994; Zbl 0829.14023)]. It was conjectured, in this context, that the polar duality of reflexive polyhedra induces the mirror symmetry for the corresponding Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces. This conjecture has been generalized, by both authors of the present paper, to Calabi-Yau complete intersections in Gorenstein Fano varieties and, in the sequel, to generalized Calabi-Yau manifolds. As one necessarily has to work with singular Calabi-Yau varieties, the first author was then led to introduce the so-called ``string-theoretic Hodge numbers'' for such varieties, which coincide with the usual ones in the smooth case [cf. \textit{V. V. Batyrev} and \textit{D. I. Dais}, Topology 35, No. 4, 901-929 (1996; Zbl 0864.14022)]. In this framework, the mirror symmetry conjecture (predicted by physicists) has to be modified as follows: Let \((V,W)\) a mirror pair of singular \(n\)-dimensional Calabi-Yau varieties. Then the string-theoretic Hodge numbers are related by the duality \(h^{p,q}_{\text{string}} (V)= h^{n- p,q}_{\text{string}} (W)\) for \(0\leq p\), \(q\leq n\). The present paper provides an affirmative answer to this mirror symmetry conjecture for the string-theoretic Hodge numbers of Calabi-Yau complete intersections in Gorenstein toric Fano varieties. -- The proof of this important result is based on combinatorial properties of certain polynomials arising from the intersection homology of those varieties and its associated mixed Hodge structure.