In his answer to this question, Scott Carnahan mentions "mirror symmetry mod p". What is that?
(Some kind of) Gromov-Witten invariants can be defined for varieties over fields other than $\mathbb{C}$. Moreover other things that come up in mirror symmetry, like variation of Hodge structure, and derived categories of coherent sheaves, also make sense. (Though I can't imagine that it's possible to talk about Fukaya categories…) Can we formulate any sort of sensible mirror symmetry statement, similar to say that of Candelas-de la Ossa-Green-Parkes relating Gromov-Witten invariants of a quintic threefold to variation of Hodge structure of the mirror variety, when the varieties are over some field other than $\mathbb{C}$? In particular, can we do anything like this for fields of positive characteristic?
I googled "arithmetic mirror symmetry" and "mirror symmetry mod p", and I found some stuff about the relationship between the arithmetic of mirror varieties, but nothing about Gromov-Witten invariants. I did find notes from the Candelas lectures that Scott referred to, but I wasn't able to figure out what was going on in them.
More generally, there are many examples of mathematical statements about complex algebraic varieties which come from physics/quantum field theory/string theory. Some of these statements (maybe with some modification) can still make sense if we replace "variety over $\mathbb{C}$ with "variety over $k$", where $k$ is some arbitrary field, or a field of positive characteristic, or whatever. Are there any such statements which have been proven?
Edit: I'm getting some answers, and they are all sound very interesting, but I'm still especially curious about whether anybody has done anything regarding Gromov-Witten invariants over fields other than $\mathbb{C}$.
Best Answer
For fixed integers $g,n$, any projective scheme $X$ over a field $k$, and a linear map $\beta:\operatorname{Pic}(X)\to\mathbb Z$, the space $\overline{M}_{g,n}(X,\beta)$ of stable maps is well defined as an Artin stack with finite stabilizer, no matter the characteristic of $k$. You can even replace $k$ by $\mathbb Z$ if you like.
Now if $X$ is a smooth projective scheme over $R=\mathbb Z[1/N]$ for some integer $N$, then $\overline{M}_{g,n}(X,\beta) \times_R \mathbb Z/p\mathbb Z$ is a Deligne-Mumford stack for almost all primes $p$. For such $p$, $\overline{M}_{g,n}(X,\beta) \times_R \mathbb Z/p\mathbb Z$ has a virtual fundamental cycle, and so you have well-defined Gromov-Witten invariants. This holds for all but finitely many $p$. Nothing about $\mathbb C$ here, that is my point, the construction is purely algebraic and very general.
It is when you say "Hodge structures" then you better work over $\mathbb C$, unless you mean $p$-Hodge structures.
As far as mirror symmetry in characteristic $p$, much of it is again characteristic-free. For example Batyrev's combinatorial mirror symmetry for Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces in toric varieties is simply the duality between reflexive polytopes. You can do that in any characteristic, indeed over $\mathbb Z$ if you like.