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We present a distributional approach to theoretical analyses of reinforcement learning algorithms for constant step-sizes. We demonstrate its effectiveness by presenting simple and unified proofs of convergence for a variety of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-30 Philip Amortila , Doina Precup , Prakash Panangaden , Marc G. Bellemare

Designing sample-efficient and computationally feasible reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms is particularly challenging in environments with large or infinite state and action spaces. In this paper, we advance this effort by presenting…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-04 Zakaria Mhammedi

In real scenarios, state observations that an agent observes may contain measurement errors or adversarial noises, misleading the agent to take suboptimal actions or even collapse while training. In this paper, we study the training…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-23 Ke Sun , Yingnan Zhao , Shangling Jui , Linglong Kong

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has gained substantial attention across diverse application domains and theoretical investigations. Existing literature on RL theory largely focuses on risk-neutral settings where the decision-maker learns to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-24 Zhengqi Wu , Renyuan Xu

Some approaches to solving challenging dynamic programming problems, such as Q-learning, begin by transforming the Bellman equation into an alternative functional equation, in order to open up a new line of attack. Our paper studies this…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-12-05 Qingyin Ma , John Stachurski

The Bellman equation and its continuous form, the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation, are ubiquitous in reinforcement learning and control theory. However, these equations become intractable for high-dimensional or nonlinear systems. This…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-04 Preston Rozwood , Edward Mehrez , Ludger Paehler , Wen Sun , Steven L. Brunton

We propose a novel algorithmic framework for distributional reinforcement learning, based on learning finite-dimensional mean embeddings of return distributions. We derive several new algorithms for dynamic programming and…

Discrete time stochastic optimal control problems and Markov decision processes (MDPs) are fundamental models for sequential decision-making under uncertainty and as such provide the mathematical framework underlying reinforcement learning…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-07-01 Arnulf Jentzen , Konrad Kleinberg , Thomas Kruse

We study risk-sensitive reinforcement learning (RL), a crucial field due to its ability to enhance decision-making in scenarios where it is essential to manage uncertainty and minimize potential adverse outcomes. Particularly, our work…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-11 Dake Zhang , Boxiang Lyu , Shuang Qiu , Mladen Kolar , Tong Zhang

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has emerged as an efficient method of choice for solving complex sequential decision making problems in automatic control, computer science, economics, and biology. In this paper we present a model-free RL…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2019-09-13 Mohammadhosein Hasanbeig , Yiannis Kantaros , Alessandro Abate , Daniel Kroening , George J. Pappas , Insup Lee

Distributionally robust offline reinforcement learning (RL), which seeks robust policy training against environment perturbation by modeling dynamics uncertainty, calls for function approximations when facing large state-action spaces.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-03 Zhishuai Liu , Pan Xu

We propose a new algorithm for model-based distributional reinforcement learning (RL), and prove that it is minimax-optimal for approximating return distributions with a generative model (up to logarithmic factors), resolving an open…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-05 Mark Rowland , Li Kevin Wenliang , Rémi Munos , Clare Lyle , Yunhao Tang , Will Dabney

Sequential decision making in the presence of uncertainty and stochastic dynamics gives rise to distributions over state/action trajectories in reinforcement learning (RL) and optimal control problems. This observation has led to a variety…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-30 Jad Rahme , Ryan P. Adams

We present the first finite-sample analysis of policy evaluation in robust average-reward Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Prior work in this setting have established only asymptotic convergence guarantees, leaving open the question of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-12-11 Yang Xu , Washim Uddin Mondal , Vaneet Aggarwal

Markov decision problems are most commonly solved via dynamic programming. Another approach is Bellman residual minimization, which directly minimizes the squared Bellman residual objective function. However, compared to dynamic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-28 Donghwan Lee , Hyukjun Yang

Discrete time stochastic optimal control problems and Markov decision processes (MDPs), respectively, serve as fundamental models for problems that involve sequential decision making under uncertainty and as such constitute the theoretical…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-03-08 Christian Beck , Arnulf Jentzen , Konrad Kleinberg , Thomas Kruse

We study computationally and statistically efficient reinforcement learning under the linear $Q^{\pi}$ realizability assumption, where any policy's $Q$-function is linear in a given state-action feature representation. Prior methods in this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Yijing Ke , Zihan Zhang , Ruosong Wang

Deep reinforcement learning (RL) has shown remarkable success in specific offline decision-making scenarios, yet its theoretical guarantees are still under development. Existing works on offline RL theory primarily emphasize a few trivial…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-20 Di Wu , Yuling Jiao , Li Shen , Haizhao Yang , Xiliang Lu

Reinforcement learning (RL) problems are fundamental in online decision-making and have been instrumental in finding an optimal policy for Markov decision processes (MDPs). Function approximations are usually deployed to handle large or…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-20 Jiashuo Jiang , Yiming Zong , Yinyu Ye

This paper proposes a computationally tractable algorithm for learning infinite-horizon average-reward linear Markov decision processes (MDPs) and linear mixture MDPs under the Bellman optimality condition. While guaranteeing computational…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-09-25 Woojin Chae , Dabeen Lee