arXiv:2609.38383v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Random exploration reveals how an environment can be traversed before a goal is specified. Can this experience support long-range planning without po...
By Deqian Kong, Guangyan Sun, Sheng Cheng, Sirui Xie, Bo Pang, Jianwen Xie, Tony Geng, Caiwen Ding, Ying Nian Wu
The paper develops a geometric theory of decision boundaries for structured Markov Decision Processes, treating the geometry induced by optimal policies as the key analytical object. It shows that, under structural regularity, this geometry yields the minimal representation needed for policy reconstruction and dictates the statistical and computational complexity of the reconstruction problem. The authors introduce intrinsic notions of boundary and decision complexity, derive information-theoretic measures of decision compression, and provide statistical guarantees for boundary estimation and policy reconstruction from black-box queries, supported by controlled numerical experiments.
By Fredy Pokou (MRE, INOCS)
arXiv:2602. 17315v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We introduce Flickering Multi-Armed Bandits (FMAB) to model sequential decision-making in environments with changing action availability, where accessibility of the next action is restricted to a subset dependent on the agent's current choice.
By Sourav Chakraborty, Amit Kiran Rege, Claire Monteleoni, Lijun Chen
The paper discusses how reinforcement learning theory relies on probability theory via Markov chains and highlights a deep link between probability theory and potential theory. It reviews this connection and examines how a potential-theoretic perspective can be applied to core RL representations and algorithms under a fixed‑policy assumption, suggesting possible gains in sample efficiency and formal constraints. The authors also note that relaxing the fixed‑policy assumption allows the linear potential theory framework to extend naturally to nonlinear cases.
By Christopher Connolly
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
The paper investigates when intrinsic rewards effectively drive exploration in reinforcement learning. It introduces a formal criterion that evaluates policies based on the counterfactual information they acquire, comparing how well their histories can replace experience from alternative policies. Using a simple environment, the authors show that common intrinsic reward objectives—count-based, prediction-error, empowerment, and information-gain—can lead to Pareto-suboptimal exploration under this criterion, and they propose conditions and a new objective that better align with optimal exploration.
By Scott W. Viteri (Stanford University), Laura Gomezjurado Gonzalez (Stanford University), Clark Barrett (Stanford University)