arXiv:2606. 16729v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: While there is an extensive body of work characterizing the sample complexity of discounted cumulative-reward MDPs, finite sample analyses for average-reward MDPs have been limited, and most existing works rely on restrictive assumptions such as ergodicity or access to a generative model.
By Jongmin Lee, Ernest K. Ryu, Vaneet Aggarwal
Discounted exponential utility provides a principled criterion for risk-sensitive sequential decision-making, but its nonlinear structure complicates reinforcement learning. A recent work \citep{thoppe2026reinforcement} addressed this difficulty by introducing a Bellman-compatible surrogate and two model-free fixed-point algorithms for optimizing it over stationary policies.
arXiv:2608. 14408v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We study online statistical inference for functionals of the return distribution under a fixed policy.
By Yang Peng, Liangyu Zhang
arXiv:2606. 05967v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: In this paper, we study the finite-time behavior of the TD(0) temporal-difference method with linear function approximation (LFA).
By Ziad Kobeissi (L2S), \'Elo\"ise Berthier (U2IS)
arXiv:2608. 01917v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Discounted exponential utility provides a principled criterion for risk-sensitive sequential decision-making, but its nonlinear structure complicates reinforcement learning.
By Ankur Naskar, Vivek T A, Aditya Kumar, Gugan Thoppe, Prashanth L. A
arXiv:2510. 02149v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We introduce Action-Triggered Sporadically Traceable Markov Decision Processes (ATST-MDPs), a reinforcement learning framework for partial observability in which full state observations occur stochastically at each step, with probability determined by the chosen action.
By Alexander Ryabchenko, Wenlong Mou
arXiv:2606. 15978v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Tsitsiklis proved convergence of Monte Carlo optimistic policy iteration under a uniform update structure and identified nonuniform update frequencies as a delicate obstruction.
By Yuanlong Chen
arXiv:2606. 18183v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Temporal difference (TD) learning with linear function approximation is a core method for policy evaluation.
By M. Forzo, E. Monzio Compagnoni, A. Russo, A. Pacchiano
arXiv:2608. 10896v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Constant-stepsize temporal-difference (TD) learning is attractive for policy evaluation, but inference from a single Markov trajectory must account for serial dependence and a stepsize-dependent stationary target.
By Min Zeng, Yichen Zhang, Xiaofeng Shao
arXiv:2603. 23461v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We study reinforcement learning (RL) with linear function approximation in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) satisfying \emph{linear Bellman completeness} -- a fundamental setting where the Bellman backup of any linear value function remains linear.
By Zakaria Mhammedi, Alexander Rakhlin, Nneka Okolo
arXiv:2606. 04335v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The framework of robust Markov decision processes (RMDPs) allows the design of reinforcement learning agents that satisfy performance guarantees under worst-case transition dynamics.
By Tanya Veeravalli, David M. Bossens, Atsushi Nitanda
The framework of robust Markov decision processes (RMDPs) allows the design of reinforcement learning agents that satisfy performance guarantees under worst-case transition dynamics. Traditional RMDPs consider discrete-time dynamics and recently, sample-efficient policy gradient algorithms have been considered in this context.