Stringy Hodge numbers via crepant resolutions by Artin stacks

Abstract: In a previous paper we showed that any variety with log-terminal singularities admits a crepant resolution by a smooth Artin stack. In this paper we prove the converse, thereby proving that a variety admits a crepant resolution by a smooth Artin stack if and only if it has log-terminal singularities. Furthermore if $\mathcal{X} \to Y$ is such a resolution, we obtain a formula for the stringy Hodge numbers of $Y$ in terms of (motivically) integrating an explicit weight function over twisted arcs of $\mathcal{X}$. That weight function takes only finitely many values, so we believe this result provides a plausible avenue for finding a long-sought cohomological interpretation for stringy Hodge numbers. Using that the resulting integral is defined intrinsically in terms of $\mathcal{X}$, we also obtain a notion of stringy Hodge numbers for smooth Artin stacks, that in particular, recovers Chen and Ruan's notion of orbifold Hodge numbers.