An Equisingular Specialisation of the Compactified Jacobian and its applications

For any positive integer $k$, let $X_k$ be a projective irreducible nodal curve with $k$ nodes. We show that the Betti numbers and the mixed Hodge numbers of the compactified Jacobian $\overline{J_{k}}$ of an irreducible nodal curve $X_k$ with $k$ nodes are the same as the Betti numbers and the mixed Hodge numbers of $J_0\times R^k$, where $J_0$ is the Jacobian of the normalisation of the irreducible nodal curve and $R$ denotes the rational nodal curve with one node. We prove it by constructing a topologically locally trivial family of projective varieties containing $\overline{J_{k}}$ and $J_0\times R^k$ as fibres.