Hodge theory for tropical fans

Abstract: This paper is the first in a series devoted to the development of a Hodge theory for tropical varieties. We introduce a notion of T-stability for tropical fans and prove that various geometric properties of tropical fans are T-stable. As a consequence, we establish K\"ahler properties for the Chow ring in a large class of tropical fans, going beyond the case of matroids and their Bergman fans. As a by-product, we obtain a new proof of the K\"ahler package for combinatorial geometries. The approach makes it possible to deal with tropical fans with general weights.