Motivic classes of stacks in finite characteristic and applications to stacks of Higgs bundles

Abstract: We define a ring of motivic classes of stacks suitable for symmetric powers in finite characteristic. Let $X$ be a smooth projective curve over a field of arbitrary characteristic. We calculate the motivic classes of the moduli stacks of semistable Higgs bundles on $X$. This recovers results of Fedorov, A. Soibelman and Y. Soibelman in characteristic zero, as well as those of Mozgovoy and Schiffmann for finite fields. We also obtain a simpler formula for the motivic classes of Higgs bundles in the universal $\lambda$-ring quotient using Mellit's results.