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This work examines average-reward reinforcement learning with general policy parametrization. Existing state-of-the-art (SOTA) guarantees for this problem are either suboptimal or hindered by several challenges, including poor scalability…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-07 Swetha Ganesh , Washim Uddin Mondal , Vaneet Aggarwal

This paper studies the mean-field Markov decision process (MDP) with the centralized stopping under the non-exponential discount. The problem differs fundamentally from most existing studies on mean-field optimal control/stopping due to its…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-01-22 Xiang Yu , Fengyi Yuan

We study a multi-agent reinforcement learning dynamics, and analyze its asymptotic behavior in infinite-horizon discounted Markov potential games. We focus on the independent and decentralized setting, where players do not know the game…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-02 Chinmay Maheshwari , Manxi Wu , Druv Pai , Shankar Sastry

Quantum information quantities play a substantial role in characterizing operational quantities in various quantum information-theoretic problems. We consider numerical computation of four quantum information quantities: Petz-Augustin…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2022-02-07 Jun-Kai You , Hao-Chung Cheng , Yen-Huan Li

Explicit exploration in the action space was assumed to be indispensable for online policy gradient methods to avoid a drastic degradation in sample complexity, for solving general reinforcement learning problems over finite state and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-22 Yan Li , Guanghui Lan

This paper presents the first sufficient conditions that guarantee the stability and almost sure convergence of multi-timescale stochastic approximation (SA) iterates. It extends the existing results on one-timescale and two-timescale SA…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-10-16 Rohan Deb , Swetha Ganesh , Shalabh Bhatnagar

Projected policy gradient under the simplex parameterization, policy gradient and natural policy gradient under the softmax parameterization, are fundamental algorithms in reinforcement learning. There have been a flurry of recent…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-04-12 Jiacai Liu , Wenye Li , Ke Wei

Variational inequalities play a key role in machine learning research, such as generative adversarial networks, reinforcement learning, adversarial training, and generative models. This paper is devoted to the constrained variational…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-19 Mohammad S. Alkousa , Fedor S. Stonyakin , Belal A. Alashqar , Seydamet S. Ablaev

We consider the problem of learning the optimal policy for infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs). For this purpose, some variant of Stochastic Mirror Descent is proposed for convex programming problems with Lipschitz-continuous…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-03-01 Daniil Tiapkin , Alexander Gasnikov

We consider risk-averse convex stochastic programs expressed in terms of extended polyhedral risk measures. We derive computable confidence intervals on the optimal value of such stochastic programs using the Robust Stochastic Approximation…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-09-06 Vincent Guigues

We investigate the convergence of stochastic mirror descent (SMD) under interpolation in relatively smooth and smooth convex optimization. In relatively smooth convex optimization we provide new convergence guarantees for SMD with a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-05-26 Ryan D'Orazio , Nicolas Loizou , Issam Laradji , Ioannis Mitliagkas

New one-leg multistep time discretizations of nonlinear evolution equations are investigated. The main features of the scheme are the preservation of the nonnegativity and the entropy-dissipation structure of the diffusive equations. The…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2013-12-02 Ansgar Jüngel , Josipa-Pina Milišić

Multi-step temporal difference (TD) learning is an important approach in reinforcement learning, as it unifies one-step TD learning with Monte Carlo methods in a way where intermediate algorithms can outperform either extreme. They address…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-09-10 Kristopher De Asis , Richard S. Sutton

We consider the core reinforcement-learning problem of on-policy value function approximation from a batch of trajectory data, and focus on various issues of Temporal Difference (TD) learning and Monte Carlo (MC) policy evaluation. The two…

Long-term training of large language models (LLMs) requires maintaining stable exploration to prevent the model from collapsing into sub-optimal behaviors. Entropy is crucial in this context, as it controls exploration and helps avoid…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Kai Yang , Xin Xu , Yangkun Chen , Weijie Liu , Jiafei Lyu , Zichuan Lin , Deheng Ye , Saiyong Yang

Differential temporal difference (TD) methods are value-based reinforcement learning algorithms that have been proposed for infinite-horizon problems. They rely on reward centering, where each reward is centered by the average reward. This…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-07 Kris De Asis , Mohamed Elsayed , Jiamin He

We provide non-asymptotic bounds for the well-known temporal difference learning algorithm TD(0) with linear function approximators. These include high-probability bounds as well as bounds in expectation. Our analysis suggests that a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-09-02 Nathaniel Korda , L. A. Prashanth

Indirect trajectory optimization methods such as Differential Dynamic Programming (DDP) have found considerable success when only planning under dynamic feasibility constraints. Meanwhile, nonlinear programming (NLP) has been the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-05-06 Sumeet Singh , Jean-Jacques Slotine , Vikas Sindhwani

Entropy Regularisation is a widely adopted technique that enhances policy optimisation performance and stability. A notable form of entropy regularisation is augmenting the objective with an entropy term, thereby simultaneously optimising…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-26 Jean Seong Bjorn Choe , Jong-Kook Kim

Most existing results about \emph{last-iterate convergence} of learning dynamics are limited to two-player zero-sum games, and only apply under rigid assumptions about what dynamics the players follow. In this paper we provide new results…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-03-24 Ioannis Anagnostides , Ioannis Panageas , Gabriele Farina , Tuomas Sandholm