Related papers: Ordering-based Conditions for Global Convergence o…
Approaches to policy optimization have been motivated from diverse principles, based on how the parametric model is interpreted (e.g. value versus policy representation) or how the learning objective is formulated, yet they share a common…
We propose a new policy gradient method, named homotopic policy mirror descent (HPMD), for solving discounted, infinite horizon MDPs with finite state and action spaces. HPMD performs a mirror descent type policy update with an additional…
The study of convex optimization has historically been concerned with worst-case convergence rates. The development of the Optimized Gradient Method (OGM), due to \citet{drori2012PerformanceOF,Kim2016optimal}, marked a major milestone in…
We consider solving nonconvex composite optimization problems in which the sum of a smooth function and a nonsmooth function is minimized. Many of convergence analyses of proximal gradient-type methods rely on global descent property…
We study the performance of the gradient play algorithm for stochastic games (SGs), where each agent tries to maximize its own total discounted reward by making decisions independently based on current state information which is shared…
This work studies an independent natural policy gradient (NPG) algorithm for the multi-agent reinforcement learning problem in Markov potential games. It is shown that, under mild technical assumptions and the introduction of the…
We study a variant of a recently introduced min-max optimization framework where the max-player is constrained to update its parameters in a greedy manner until it reaches a first-order stationary point. Our equilibrium definition for this…
This paper addresses the poor finite-horizon performance of existing online \emph{restless bandit} (RB) algorithms, which stems from the prohibitive sample complexity of learning a full \emph{Markov decision process} (MDP) for each agent.…
We present a model-based globally convergent policy gradient method (PGM) for linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control. Firstly, we establish equivalence between optimizing dynamic output feedback controllers and designing a static feedback…
Penalty methods are a well known class of algorithms for constrained optimization. They transform a constrained problem into a sequence of unconstrained \emph{penalized} problems in the hope that approximate solutions of the latter converge…
In this paper, we establish the convergence of the stochastic Heavy Ball (SHB) algorithm under more general conditions than in the current literature. Specifically, (i) The stochastic gradient is permitted to be biased, and also, to have…
Recently, GRPO-based reinforcement learning has shown remarkable progress in optimizing flow-matching models, effectively improving their alignment with task-specific rewards. Within these frameworks, the policy update relies on…
We propose projection-free sequential algorithms for linear-quadratic dynamics games. These policy gradient based algorithms are akin to Stackelberg leadership model and can be extended to model-free settings. We show that if the leader…
Graph matching aims to find correspondences between two graphs. This paper integrates several well-known graph matching algorithms into a framework: the constrained gradient method. The primary difference among these algorithms lies in…
We establish a link between a class of discrete choice models and the theory of online learning and multi-armed bandits. Our contributions are: (i) sublinear regret bounds for a broad algorithmic family, encompassing Exp3 as a special case;…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a formal framework for modeling and solving sequential decision-making problems. In finite-time horizons such problems are relevant for instance for optimal stopping or specific supply chain problems,…
This paper investigates the convex optimization problem with general convex inequality constraints. To cope with this problem, a discrete-time algorithm, called augmented primal-dual gradient algorithm (Aug-PDG), is studied and analyzed. It…
We study Concave Constrained Markov Decision Processes (Concave CMDPs) where both the objective and constraints are defined as concave functions of the state-action occupancy measure. We propose the Variance-Reduced Primal-Dual Policy…
In this theoretical paper we are concerned with the problem of learning a value function by a smooth general function approximator, to solve a deterministic episodic control problem in a large continuous state space. It is shown that…
We study the problem of policy optimization for infinite-horizon discounted Markov Decision Processes with softmax policy and nonlinear function approximation trained with policy gradient algorithms. We concentrate on the training dynamics…