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.
By Huiling Meng, Ningyuan Chen, Xuefeng Gao
arXiv:2606. 28669v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: To address parameter misspecification and sudden structural environmental changes in conventional stochastic differential game (SDG) frameworks, this paper introduces a distributional control approach that characterizes optimal strategies as probability distributions over actions, conditioned on the continuous state, the discrete regime state, and parameters.
By Congde Hu, Zhuo Jin, Danping Li, Lin Xu
The paper introduces a continuous‑time policy gradient framework that works with discrete observation data. It derives performance difference lemmas and policy gradient formulas for randomized and parametrized policies, proving exponential convergence for an entropy‑regularized policy flow and providing explicit convergence bounds for discrete updates. By integrating with PhiBE, the authors create model‑free actor‑critic algorithms that maintain the continuous‑time structure, and demonstrate their effectiveness on both linear‑quadratic and nonlinear robotic control tasks.
By Martin Hernandez, Xinyan Qing, Mo Zhou, Yuhua Zhu
arXiv:2512. 04697v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: This paper studies the continuous-time reinforcement learning (RL) for optimal switching problems across multiple regimes.
By Yijie Huang, Mengge Li, Xiang Yu, Zhou Zhou
arXiv:2606. 04275v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We present a novel theoretical framework for deep reinforcement learning (RL) in continuous environments by modeling the problem as a continuous-time stochastic process, drawing on insights from stochastic control.
By Saket Tiwari, Tejas Kotwal, George Konidaris
The paper investigates continuous‑time stochastic control problems with unknown drift and running reward functions, using an exploratory reinforcement learning framework that incorporates relaxed controls and entropy regularization. It develops policy‑iteration algorithms based on probabilistic representations of the optimal value function and its gradient, proving convergence and demonstrating performance through numerical examples. The study also extends to a special case with control‑dependent diffusion, requiring a Hessian representation.
By Jin Ma, Gaozhan Wang, Jianfeng Zhang, Xunyu Zhou
arXiv:2606. 05888v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Retry-based objectives such as pass@K and max@K optimize the best return obtained from multiple sampled trajectories, and recent work has shown that they can promote exploration without explicit exploration bonuses.
By Soichiro Nishimori, Paavo Parmas
arXiv:2512. 14991v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We study reinforcement learning for controlled diffusion processes with unbounded continuous state spaces, bounded continuous actions, and polynomially growing rewards: settings that arise naturally in finance, economics, and operations research.
By Hanqing Jin, Renyuan Xu, Yanzhao Yang
The paper introduces a model‑free continuous‑time reinforcement learning algorithm that learns from a fixed batch of discrete‑time off‑policy data. It builds on the PhiBE‑Q framework to create a PhiBE‑PI policy iteration that uses a single state‑action critic, avoiding explicit drift or diffusion estimation. The authors provide a local end‑to‑end suboptimality guarantee under linear function approximation, analyze error propagation from discretization, function approximation, and finite samples, and reveal a bias‑variance trade‑off where finer time discretization can worsen statistical error.
By Chaorui Yao, Yuming Paul Zhang, Lin Yang, Yuhua Zhu
arXiv:2606. 28671v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Stackelberg differential games (SDGs) provide a powerful framework for hierarchical decision-making in stochastic and continuous-time environments, yet their solution remains computationally challenging due to the complexity of traditional dynamic programming and Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman-Isaacs (HJBI) methods, especially in high-dimensional systems.
By Congde Hu, Danping Li, Lin Xu, Wenying Xu
arXiv:2505. 23527v4 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Modern reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms have found success by using powerful probabilistic models, such as transformers, energy-based models, and diffusion/flow-based models.
By Raj Ghugare, Benjamin Eysenbach
The paper introduces a mesh‑free policy iteration framework that blends classical dynamic programming with physics‑informed neural networks (PINNs) to solve high‑dimensional, nonconvex Hamilton–Jacobi–Isaacs (HJI) equations. The method alternates between solving linear second‑order PDEs under fixed feedback policies and updating controls via pointwise minimax optimization using automatic differentiation. The authors prove local uniform convergence of the value function iterates to the unique viscosity solution under standard Lipschitz and uniform ellipticity assumptions, and demonstrate the approach’s accuracy and scalability in two‑, five‑, and ten‑dimensional stochastic games, outperforming direct PINN solvers.
By Hee Jun Yang, Minjung Gim, Yeoneung Kim