Related papers: Horizon-Free and Instance-Dependent Regret Bounds …

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…

Recent studies have shown that episodic reinforcement learning (RL) is no harder than bandits when the total reward is bounded by $1$, and proved regret bounds that have a polylogarithmic dependence on the planning horizon $H$. However, it…

Strong worst-case performance bounds for episodic reinforcement learning exist but fortunately in practice RL algorithms perform much better than such bounds would predict. Algorithms and theory that provide strong problem-dependent bounds…

This paper studies model-based reinforcement learning (RL) for regret minimization. We focus on finite-horizon episodic RL where the transition model $P$ belongs to a known family of models $\mathcal{P}$, a special case of which is when…

We study regret minimization for reinforcement learning (RL) in Latent Markov Decision Processes (LMDPs) with context in hindsight. We design a novel model-based algorithmic framework which can be instantiated with both a model-optimistic…

A large variety of real-world Reinforcement Learning (RL) tasks is characterized by a complex and heterogeneous structure that makes end-to-end (or flat) approaches hardly applicable or even infeasible. Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning…

We study the problem of planning under model uncertainty in an online meta-reinforcement learning (RL) setting where an agent is presented with a sequence of related tasks with limited interactions per task. The agent can use its experience…

Online reinforcement learning in infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) remains less theoretically and algorithmically developed than its episodic counterpart, with many algorithms suffering from high ``burn-in'' costs and…

While numerous works have focused on devising efficient algorithms for reinforcement learning (RL) with uniformly bounded rewards, it remains an open question whether sample or time-efficient algorithms for RL with large state-action space…

We study the problem of infinite-horizon average-reward reinforcement learning with linear Markov decision processes (MDPs). The associated Bellman operator of the problem not being a contraction makes the algorithm design challenging.…

This paper gives the first polynomial-time algorithm for tabular Markov Decision Processes (MDP) that enjoys a regret bound \emph{independent on the planning horizon}. Specifically, we consider tabular MDP with $S$ states, $A$ actions, a…

The theory of reinforcement learning has focused on two fundamental problems: achieving low regret, and identifying $\epsilon$-optimal policies. While a simple reduction allows one to apply a low-regret algorithm to obtain an…

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) approaches have shown successful results in solving a large variety of complex, structured, long-horizon problems. Nevertheless, a full theoretical understanding of this empirical evidence is…

Learning a transition model via Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) followed by planning inside the learned model is perhaps the most standard and simplest Model-based Reinforcement Learning (RL) framework. In this work, we show that such a…

We study reinforcement learning in an infinite-horizon average-reward setting with linear function approximation, where the transition probability function of the underlying Markov Decision Process (MDP) admits a linear form over a feature…

Achieving sample efficiency in online episodic reinforcement learning (RL) requires optimally balancing exploration and exploitation. When it comes to a finite-horizon episodic Markov decision process with $S$ states, $A$ actions and…

This paper studies the safe reinforcement learning problem formulated as an episodic finite-horizon tabular constrained Markov decision process with an unknown transition kernel and stochastic reward and cost functions. We propose a…

We study the constrained reinforcement learning problem, in which an agent aims to maximize the expected cumulative reward subject to a constraint on the expected total value of a utility function. In contrast to existing model-based…

State-of-the-art efficient model-based Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms typically act by iteratively solving empirical models, i.e., by performing \emph{full-planning} on Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) built by the gathered…

This work advances randomized exploration in reinforcement learning (RL) with function approximation modeled by linear mixture MDPs. We establish the first prior-dependent Bayesian regret bound for RL with function approximation; and refine…