Related papers: Beyond Value-Function Gaps: Improved Instance-Depe…

Optimistic algorithms have been extensively studied for regret minimization in episodic tabular MDPs, both from a minimax and an instance-dependent view. However, for the PAC RL problem, where the goal is to identify a near-optimal policy…

Policy design in non-stationary Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) is inherently challenging due to the complexities introduced by time-varying system transition and reward, which make it difficult for learners to determine the optimal…

We consider un-discounted reinforcement learning (RL) in Markov decision processes (MDPs) under drifting non-stationarity, i.e., both the reward and state transition distributions are allowed to evolve over time, as long as their respective…

We study the model-based undiscounted reinforcement learning for partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs). The oracle we consider is the optimal policy of the POMDP with a known environment in terms of the average reward over…

We consider online learning in episodic loop-free Markov decision processes (MDPs), where the loss function can change arbitrarily between episodes, and the transition function is not known to the learner. We show…

We establish that an optimistic variant of Q-learning applied to a fixed-horizon episodic Markov decision process with an aggregated state representation incurs regret $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\sqrt{H^5 M K} + \epsilon HK)$, where $H$ is the…

In this paper, we investigate the problem of \textit{episodic reinforcement learning} with quantum oracles for state evolution. To this end, we propose an \textit{Upper Confidence Bound} (UCB) based quantum algorithmic framework to…

Reinforcement learning algorithms are typically designed for generic Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), where any state-action pair can lead to an arbitrary transition distribution. In many practical systems, however, only a subset of the…

In this work, we study algorithms for learning in infinite-horizon undiscounted Markov decision processes (MDPs) with function approximation. We first show that the regret analysis of the Politex algorithm (a version of regularized policy…

We present an approach for the quantification of the usefulness of transfer in reinforcement learning via regret bounds for a multi-agent setting. Considering a number of $\aleph$ agents operating in the same Markov decision process,…

The theory of reinforcement learning currently suffers from a mismatch between its empirical performance and the theoretical characterization of its performance, with consequences for, e.g., the understanding of sample efficiency, safety,…

We consider the reinforcement learning problem for the constrained Markov decision process (CMDP), which plays a central role in satisfying safety or resource constraints in sequential learning and decision-making. In this problem, we are…

This paper studies a recent proposal to use randomized value functions to drive exploration in reinforcement learning. These randomized value functions are generated by injecting random noise into the training data, making the approach…

We study episodic reinforcement learning in non-stationary linear (a.k.a. low-rank) Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), i.e, both the reward and transition kernel are linear with respect to a given feature map and are allowed to evolve either…

In two-player zero-sum games, the learning dynamic based on optimistic Hedge achieves one of the best-known regret upper bounds among strongly-uncoupled learning dynamics. With an appropriately chosen learning rate, the social and…

We introduce the technique of adaptive discretization to design an efficient model-based episodic reinforcement learning algorithm in large (potentially continuous) state-action spaces. Our algorithm is based on optimistic one-step value…

Deep reinforcement learning has achieved impressive successes yet often requires a very large amount of interaction data. This result is perhaps unsurprising, as using complicated function approximation often requires more data to fit, and…

This paper investigates the potential of quantum acceleration in addressing infinite horizon Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) to enhance average reward outcomes. We introduce an innovative quantum framework for the agent's engagement with…

Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) replaces hard-to-specify rewards with pairwise trajectory preferences, yet regret-oriented theory often assumes that preference labels are generated consistently from a single ground-truth…

A recent line of works showed regret bounds in reinforcement learning (RL) can be (nearly) independent of planning horizon, a.k.a.~the horizon-free bounds. However, these regret bounds only apply to settings where a polynomial dependency on…