Cohomological $\chi$-independence for Higgs bundles and Gopakumar-Vafa invariants

The aim of this paper is two-fold: Firstly, we prove Toda's $\chi$-independence conjecture for Gopakumar--Vafa invariants of arbitrary local curves. Secondly, following Davison's work, we introduce the BPS cohomology for moduli spaces of Higgs bundles of rank $r$ and Euler characteristic $\chi$ which are not necessary coprime, and show that it does not depend on $\chi$. This result extends the Hausel--Thaddeus conjecture on the $\chi$-independence of E-polynomials proved by Mellit, Groechenig--Wyss--Ziegler and Yu in two ways: we obtain an isomorphism of mixed Hodge modules on the Hitchin base rather than an equality of E-polynomials, and we do not need the coprime assumption. The proof of these results is based on a description of the moduli stack of one-dimensional coherent sheaves on a local curve as a global critical locus which is obtained in the companion paper by the first author and Naruki Masuda.