Segre classes and invariants of singular varieties

Paolo Aluffi

Segre classes encode essential intersection-theoretic information concerning vector bundles and embeddings of schemes. In this paper we survey a range of applications of Segre classes to the definition and study of invariants of singular spaces. We will focus on several numerical invariants, on different notions of characteristic classes for singular varieties, and on classes of Le cycles. We precede the main discussion with a review of relevant background notions in algebraic geometry and intersection theory.