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A Concentration Bound for TD(0) with Function Approximation

Machine Learning 2026-01-13 v4 Systems and Control Systems and Control Machine Learning

Abstract

We derive uniform all-time concentration bound of the type 'for all nn0n \geq n_0 for some n0n_0' for TD(0) with linear function approximation. We work with online TD learning with samples from a single sample path of the underlying Markov chain. This makes our analysis significantly different from offline TD learning or TD learning with access to independent samples from the stationary distribution of the Markov chain. We treat TD(0) as a contractive stochastic approximation algorithm, with both martingale and Markov noises. Markov noise is handled using the Poisson equation and the lack of almost sure guarantees on boundedness of iterates is handled using the concept of relaxed concentration inequalities.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2312.10424,
  title  = {A Concentration Bound for TD(0) with Function Approximation},
  author = {Siddharth Chandak and Vivek S. Borkar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2312.10424},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Published in Stochastic Systems

R2 v1 2026-06-28T13:53:28.625Z