Almost Sure Convergence of Differential Temporal Difference Learning for Average Reward Markov Decision Processes
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866917279579504640 |
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| author | Blaser, Ethan Wang, Jiuqi Zhang, Shangtong |
| author_facet | Blaser, Ethan Wang, Jiuqi Zhang, Shangtong |
| contents | The average reward is a fundamental performance metric in reinforcement learning (RL) focusing on the long-run performance of an agent. Differential temporal difference (TD) learning algorithms are a major advance for average reward RL as they provide an efficient online method to learn the value functions associated with the average reward in both on-policy and off-policy settings. However, existing convergence guarantees require a local clock in learning rates tied to state visit counts, which practitioners do not use and does not extend beyond tabular settings. We address this limitation by proving the almost sure convergence of on-policy $n$-step differential TD for any $n$ using standard diminishing learning rates without a local clock. We then derive three sufficient conditions under which off-policy $n$-step differential TD also converges without a local clock. These results strengthen the theoretical foundations of differential TD and bring its convergence analysis closer to practical implementations. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_16629 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Almost Sure Convergence of Differential Temporal Difference Learning for Average Reward Markov Decision Processes Blaser, Ethan Wang, Jiuqi Zhang, Shangtong Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence The average reward is a fundamental performance metric in reinforcement learning (RL) focusing on the long-run performance of an agent. Differential temporal difference (TD) learning algorithms are a major advance for average reward RL as they provide an efficient online method to learn the value functions associated with the average reward in both on-policy and off-policy settings. However, existing convergence guarantees require a local clock in learning rates tied to state visit counts, which practitioners do not use and does not extend beyond tabular settings. We address this limitation by proving the almost sure convergence of on-policy $n$-step differential TD for any $n$ using standard diminishing learning rates without a local clock. We then derive three sufficient conditions under which off-policy $n$-step differential TD also converges without a local clock. These results strengthen the theoretical foundations of differential TD and bring its convergence analysis closer to practical implementations. |
| title | Almost Sure Convergence of Differential Temporal Difference Learning for Average Reward Markov Decision Processes |
| topic | Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.16629 |