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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kadurha, David Krame, Moutouo, Domini Jocema Leko, Gaba, Yae Ulrich
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.14564
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author Kadurha, David Krame
Moutouo, Domini Jocema Leko
Gaba, Yae Ulrich
author_facet Kadurha, David Krame
Moutouo, Domini Jocema Leko
Gaba, Yae Ulrich
contents This paper reviews the topological groundwork for the study of reinforcement learning (RL) by focusing on the structure of state, action, and policy spaces. We begin by recalling key mathematical concepts such as complete metric spaces, which form the foundation for expressing RL problems. By leveraging the Banach contraction principle, we illustrate how the Banach fixed-point theorem explains the convergence of RL algorithms and how Bellman operators, expressed as operators on Banach spaces, ensure this convergence. The work serves as a bridge between theoretical mathematics and practical algorithm design, offering new approaches to enhance the efficiency of RL. In particular, we investigate alternative formulations of Bellman operators and demonstrate their impact on improving convergence rates and performance in standard RL environments such as MountainCar, CartPole, and Acrobot. Our findings highlight how a deeper mathematical understanding of RL can lead to more effective algorithms for decision-making problems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_14564
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Bellman operator convergence enhancements in reinforcement learning algorithms
Kadurha, David Krame
Moutouo, Domini Jocema Leko
Gaba, Yae Ulrich
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
This paper reviews the topological groundwork for the study of reinforcement learning (RL) by focusing on the structure of state, action, and policy spaces. We begin by recalling key mathematical concepts such as complete metric spaces, which form the foundation for expressing RL problems. By leveraging the Banach contraction principle, we illustrate how the Banach fixed-point theorem explains the convergence of RL algorithms and how Bellman operators, expressed as operators on Banach spaces, ensure this convergence. The work serves as a bridge between theoretical mathematics and practical algorithm design, offering new approaches to enhance the efficiency of RL. In particular, we investigate alternative formulations of Bellman operators and demonstrate their impact on improving convergence rates and performance in standard RL environments such as MountainCar, CartPole, and Acrobot. Our findings highlight how a deeper mathematical understanding of RL can lead to more effective algorithms for decision-making problems.
title Bellman operator convergence enhancements in reinforcement learning algorithms
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.14564