This paper develops an online, off-policy policy-iteration framework for reinforcement learning (RL), based on sparse Gaussian-mixture-model Q-functions (S-GMM-QFs). The framework reconciles streaming, non-stationary data with the Riemannian structure of the parameter space while handling distributional mismatch through experience replay.
arXiv:2512. 18763v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Unlike their conventional use as estimators of probability density functions in reinforcement learning (RL), this paper introduces a novel function-approximation role for Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) as direct surrogates for Q-function losses.
By Minh Vu, Konstantinos Slavakis
arXiv:2607. 10169v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Reinforcement learning (RL) has become a dominant paradigm for enhancing LLMs' reasoning capabilities.
By Zhicheng Cai, Xinyuan Guo, Hanlin Wu, Mingxuan Wang, Wei-Ying Ma, Ya-Qin Zhang, Hao Zhou
arXiv:2609.06882v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Diffusion policies offer a powerful and expressive parameterization for continuous control. Yet, their integration with reinforcement learning remain...
By Mahmoud Selim, Cristina Cipriani, Karl H. Johansson
The paper introduces state abstractions that preserve the difference of Q‑functions for offline reinforcement learning, aiming to exclude irrelevant dynamics from rich state data. It proposes a dynamic generalization of the R‑learner that uses orthogonal estimation and sparse learning to estimate the Q‑function contrast, achieving faster convergence and consistency under a margin condition. Experiments on simulated and simulator‑augmented real data show variance reductions and demonstrate that the necessary information for sequential decision‑making can be smaller than that required for full state prediction.
By Defu Cao, Angela Zhou
arXiv:2608.22595v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We develop a new framework for flexible, nonlinear, and interpretable off-policy evaluation for infinite-horizon reinforcement learning. To handle larg...
By Tuoyi Zhao, Chengchun Shi, Zhengling Qi, Lan Wang
arXiv:2606. 00350v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Offline reinforcement learning requires improving a policy from fixed data while avoiding out-of-distribution actions with unreliable value estimates.
By Anas Houssaini, Mohamad H. Danesh, Amin Abyaneh, Scott Fujimoto, Hsiu-Chin Lin, David Meger
arXiv:2606. 10613v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Diffusion-based Q-learning has emerged as a powerful paradigm for offline reinforcement learning, but its reliance on multi-step denoising makes both training and inference computationally expensive and brittle.
By Thanh Nguyen, Tri Ton, Hongbin Choe, Tung M. Luu, Chang D. Yoo
arXiv:2607. 21302v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Behavior prior reinforcement learning (BPRL) has emerged as a promising paradigm to improve sample efficiency in online reinforcement learning (RL) by leveraging policy priors derived from offline demonstrations.
By Gong Gao, Weidong Zhao, Xianhui Liu, Ning Jia
The paper introduces Bidirectional Behavior Prior Distillation (B2PD), a method that uses action‑value priors to train a conditional variational autoencoder for generating high‑value behavior support. These expert behavior priors are then distilled into the online reinforcement learning agent, reducing inefficient exploration and stabilizing policy updates. Experiments on state‑ and pixel‑based tasks show that B2PD improves sample efficiency while maintaining stable learning dynamics.
By Gong Gao, Xiao Lai, Jiaji Shen, Ning Jia, Xianhui Liu, Weidong Zhao
The paper introduces Q-Target Pretrained Transformers (QTPT), a method that replaces supervised behavior cloning with a Bellman-style Q‑target objective for in‑context reinforcement learning. QTPT retains the context‑conditioned Transformer architecture but learns to estimate action values using rewards and transitions from the context, rather than merely imitating offline actions. The authors provide theoretical analysis in stochastic linear bandits and finite‑horizon MDPs, demonstrating improved robustness to weak or suboptimal data, and empirically show gains over supervised pretraining on controlled RL benchmarks and extensions to D4RL Kitchen and AntMaze.
By Yichen Lin, Xuyuan Xiong, Xue Wang, Xiangfu Meng, Mike Mingcheng Wei, Tao Yao
arXiv:2603. 05296v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Offline reinforcement learning (RL) allows robots to learn from offline datasets without risky exploration.
By Hokyun Im, Andrey Kolobov, Jianlong Fu, Youngwoon Lee