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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Selim, Akan, Ganguly, Siddhartha, Pakniyat, Ali, Tsiotras, Panagiotis
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.12153
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Table of Contents:
  • In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework for nonlinear stochastic optimal control problems with optimal stopping by establishing a density-based deterministic representation of the underlying diffusion. For state-independent diffusion, we rewrite the controlled Fokker-Planck equation as a continuity equation driven by a score-corrected velocity field, yielding a deterministic characteristic dynamics that reproduces the marginal law of the stochastic system. Leveraging Stein-type identities, we show that the associated distributional dynamic programming equation admits the same second-order differential operator as the distributional stochastic Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman formulation. Building on this representation, we formulate an optimal control problem with state-dependent terminal-time assignment and terminal distributional constraints and derive the first-order necessary conditions using variational analysis. We present the conditions both for a common terminal time and for the general case of state-dependent stopping.