Hirzebruch classes and motivic Chern classes for singular spaces

In this paper we study some new theories of characteristic homology classes for singular complex algebraic (or compactifiable analytic) spaces. We introduce a motivic Chern class transformation mC_{*}: K_{0}(var/X)-> G_{0}(X)[y], which generalizes the total \lambda-class of the cotangent bundle to singular spaces. Here K_{0}(var/X) is the relative Grothendieck group of complex algebraic varieties over X as introduced and studied by Looijenga and Bittner in relation to motivic integration, and G_{0}(X) is the Grothendieck group of coherent sheaves of O_{X}-modules. We define a natural transformation T_{y*}: K_{0}(var/X)-> H_{*}(X,Q)[y] commuting with proper pushdown, which generalizes the corresponding Hirzebruch characteristic. T_{y*} is a homology class version of the motivic measure corresponding to suitable specialization of the well known Hodge polynomial. This transformation unifies the Chern class transformation of MacPherson and Schwartz (for y=-1), the Todd class transformation of the singular Riemann-Roch theorem of Baum-Fulton-MacPherson (for y=0) and the L-class transformation of Cappell-Shaneson (for y=1). In the simplest case of a normal Gorenstein variety with ``canonical singularities'' we also explain a relation among the ``stringy version'' of our characteristic classses, the elliptic class of Borisov-Libgober and the stringy Chern classes of Aluffi and De Fernex-Lupercio-Nevins-Uribe. Moreover, all our results can be extended to varieties over a base field k of characteristic 0.