Lê cycles and Milnor classes (Q742837)

Various characteristic classes have been defined during the time, starting with the famous Chern classes. One of the latest defined was the notion of ``Milnor classes''. It was conjectured by \textit{J.-P. Brasselet} [Contemp. Math. 266, 181--187 (2000; Zbl 0991.14003)] that they can be expressed in terms of polar varieties. The article under review establishes this equivalence in the case of hypersurfaces of compact complex manifolds. More precisely the main result of the authors is a polynomial formula for the Milnor classes in terms of Lê cycles and reciprocally, a polynomial formula for the Lê cycles in terms of the Milnor classes. This is possible since both objects are related to polar varieties as central reference. Namely, it has been shown by \textit{A. Parusiński} and \textit{P. Pragacz} [J. Algebr. Geom. 10, No. 1, 63--79 (2001; Zbl 1072.14505)] that Milnor classes can be expressed in terms of Schwartz-MacPherson classes of the strata of some adapted Whitney stratification. \textit{R. Piene} [Trav. Cours 37, 7--34 (1988; Zbl 0688.14003)], and more recently \textit{J. Schürmann} and the reviewer [Tohoku Math. J. (2) 62, No. 1, 29--44 (2010; Zbl 1187.14013)] expressed Schwartz-MacPherson classes in terms of polar varieties. Massey, who introduced the Lê cycles in terms of polar varieties, showed how they are precisely related to MacPherson cycles. Then the authors produce the two new formulas by adapting the previous results in the general framework for constructible sheaves provided by Schürmann and Tibăr [loc. cit.].