English

Finite-Time Analysis of Projected Two-Time-Scale Stochastic Approximation

Systems and Control 2026-04-02 v1 Machine Learning Systems and Control

Abstract

We study the finite-time convergence of projected linear two-time-scale stochastic approximation with constant step sizes and Polyak--Ruppert averaging. We establish an explicit mean-square error bound, decomposing it into two interpretable components, an approximation error determined by the constrained subspace and a statistical error decaying at a sublinear rate, with constants expressed through restricted stability margins and a coupling invertibility condition. These constants cleanly separate the effect of subspace choice (approximation errors) from the effect of the averaging horizon (statistical errors). We illustrate our theoretical results through a number of numerical experiments on both synthetic and reinforcement learning problems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.00179,
  title  = {Finite-Time Analysis of Projected Two-Time-Scale Stochastic Approximation},
  author = {Yitao Bai and Thinh T. Doan and Justin Romberg},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.00179},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

6 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:47:08.288Z