Characteristic classes of singular varieties

Abstract

This is a short and concise survey on recent results on the Milnor classes of global complete intersections. By definition the Milnor class of $X$ equals the difference between the Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson and the Fulton-Johnson classes of $X$ and we describe the results that express it in terms of the local and global invariants of the singular locus of $X$. In this survey we underline the characteristic cycle approach and its realtion to the vanishing Euler characteristic, as for instance to the Euler characteristic of the Milnor fibre in the hypersurface case.