We prove the gap-entropy conjecture for fixed-confidence best-arm identification with independent unit-variance Gaussian arms, means in $[0,1]$, and a unique optimal arm. For each suboptimal arm $i$,...
arXiv:2609.13703v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: In the best-arm identification problem, we are given $n$ stochastic arms with unknown means and wish to identify the arm with the largest mean with p...
The paper investigates Bayesian fixed‑confidence best‑arm identification where a learner may abstain from a final recommendation. It introduces the Screen‑and‑Confirm (S&C) algorithm, analyzes its expected stopping time, and derives lower bounds for any algorithm under error probability δ and abstention budget α constraints. For Gaussian priors, the authors provide matching upper and lower bounds, characterize exact constants for practical regimes, and show that S&C achieves optimal α–dependent rates, improving on previous results when abstention is disallowed.
arXiv:2603. 10346v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We study the fixed-budget best-arm identification (BAI) problem in non-stationary linear bandits.
arXiv:2610. 10488v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We study the best arm identification problem in a stochastic environment with a novel form of adversarial perturbations, which we coin Shifting Means.
arXiv:2607. 16966v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Estimating entropy from samples is fundamental in information theory and property testing.
arXiv:2608. 15365v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Regret minimization (RM) and best-arm identification (BAI) are two fundamental objectives in multi-armed bandits.
arXiv:2610.20375v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Given $n$ distributions (hypotheses) $\mathcal H=\{H_1,\ldots,H_n\}$ and samples from an unknown target distribution $P$, proper hypothesis selection...
arXiv:2509. 03734v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: In the hypothesis selection problem, we are given sample and query access to finite set of candidate distributions (hypotheses), $\mathcal{H} = \{H_1, \ldots, H_n\}$, and samples from an unknown distribution $P$, both over a domain $\mathcal{X}$.
arXiv:2610.01951v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Top-two algorithms are simple and effective for fixed-confidence best-arm identification, but their sharp non-asymptotic behavior is still not well u...
arXiv:2606. 14690v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We study a \emph{max-risk} objective for active learning in a multi-group mean estimation $d$-armed bandits: a learner adaptively allocates a budget of $T$ samples across $d$ groups to minimize the worst-case uncertainty index $\max_{k\in[d]}\sigma_k^2/n_k$, where $\sigma_k$ is the standard deviation of the distribution of arm $d$, and $n_k$ is the number of times arm $d$ is sampled.
arXiv:2609.36486v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We study an unknown-transition finite-horizon Markov decision process (MDP) with a finite collection of known reward functions $\{r^1, r^2, \ldots, r^M...