arXiv:2602. 03778v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Tail-end risk measures such as static conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) are used in safety-critical applications to prevent rare, yet catastrophic events.
arXiv:2511. 19849v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Recurrence objectives, where a target region must be visited infinitely often, are a fundamental class of specifications for Markov decision processes (MDPs) and form the core of $\omega$-regular and linear temporal logic (LTL) objectives.
arXiv:2506. 07040v4 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We study model-free methods for distributionally robust infinite-horizon average-reward Markov decision processes (MDPs).
The paper introduces BUMEX, a reinforcement learning exploration strategy that leverages a set of prior models containing the true transition kernel and reward function. By optimizing over this model set, the method derives upper and lower bounds on the Q‑function to guide exploration, providing theoretical guarantees of convergence to the optimal policy. When the model set follows a bounded‑parameter MDP structure, the optimization becomes convex, enabling finite‑time convergence under mild assumptions and demonstrating accelerated learning in simulations.
arXiv:2607. 06935v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Reinforcement learning (RL) is increasingly grounded in tools from probability, optimization, and operator theory.
arXiv:2510. 03494v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We study finite-horizon offline reinforcement learning (RL) with function approximation for both policy evaluation and policy optimization.
arXiv:2608. 14401v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: In offline RL, estimating the optimal action-value function $Q^*$ can be formulated as solving the optimal Bellman equation based solely on offline observations.
Marginalized importance weighting evaluates a target policy by reweighting offline state-action samples with its discounted occupancy ratio, characterized by an adjoint Bellman equation. Existing mini...
The paper introduces reinforcement learning for Continuous-Time Jump Markov Decision Processes (CTJMDPs) with general discrete state spaces and continuous/discrete actions. It develops entropy‑regularized continuous‑time control and establishes theoretical foundations for q‑learning in this setting, providing model‑free algorithms that outperform naive discretization. Numerical tests on network dynamic pricing demonstrate the method’s ability to learn near‑optimal policies and scale to large networks.
The paper introduces occupancy-weighted Fitted Q-Evaluation (FQE), a regression-based off‑policy evaluation method that replaces the standard offline distribution weights with a target‑policy discounted occupancy ratio. This weighting aligns the projection norm with the target policy’s dynamics, restoring contraction of the Bellman operator and eliminating the need for Bellman completeness. The authors provide finite‑sample guarantees that separate iteration, statistical, approximation, and ratio‑estimation errors, and show that exact occupancy weighting combined with fitted occupancy‑ratio evaluation yields consistent estimation under coverage without requiring critic‑side completeness.
arXiv:2608. 02034v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Multi-step returns accelerate reward propagation in off-policy reinforcement learning, but couple the evaluation of each decision to the suboptimal logged actions that follow it, inducing a pessimistic bias that grows with the horizon.
arXiv:2608.24858v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Marginalized importance weighting evaluates a target policy by reweighting offline state-action samples with its discounted occupancy ratio, characteri...