Symplectic Inductive Bias for Data-Driven Target Reachability in Hamiltonian Systems

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ouyang, Zhuo, Liu, Jixian, Mallada, Enrique
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866915944418246656
author Ouyang, Zhuo
Liu, Jixian
Mallada, Enrique
author_facet Ouyang, Zhuo
Liu, Jixian
Mallada, Enrique
contents Inductive bias refers to restrictions on the hypothesis class that enable a learning method to generalize effectively from limited data. A canonical example in control is linearity, which underpins low sample-complexity guarantees for stabilization and optimal control. For general nonlinear dynamics, by contrast, guarantees often rely on smoothness assumptions (e.g., Lipschitz continuity) which, when combined with covering arguments, can lead to data requirements that grow exponentially with the ambient dimension. In this paper we argue that data-efficient nonlinear control demands exploiting inductive bias embedded in nature itself, namely, structure imposed by physical laws. Focusing on Hamiltonian systems, we leverage symplectic geometry and intrinsic recurrence on energy level sets to solve target reachability problems. Our approach combines the recurrence property with a recently proposed class of policies, called chain policies, which composes locally certified trajectory segments extracted from demonstrations to achieve target reachability. We provide sufficient conditions for reachability under this construction and show that the resulting data requirements depend on explicit geometric and recurrence properties of the Hamiltonian rather than the state dimension.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_17213
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Symplectic Inductive Bias for Data-Driven Target Reachability in Hamiltonian Systems
Ouyang, Zhuo
Liu, Jixian
Mallada, Enrique
Optimization and Control
Systems and Control
Machine Learning
Inductive bias refers to restrictions on the hypothesis class that enable a learning method to generalize effectively from limited data. A canonical example in control is linearity, which underpins low sample-complexity guarantees for stabilization and optimal control. For general nonlinear dynamics, by contrast, guarantees often rely on smoothness assumptions (e.g., Lipschitz continuity) which, when combined with covering arguments, can lead to data requirements that grow exponentially with the ambient dimension. In this paper we argue that data-efficient nonlinear control demands exploiting inductive bias embedded in nature itself, namely, structure imposed by physical laws. Focusing on Hamiltonian systems, we leverage symplectic geometry and intrinsic recurrence on energy level sets to solve target reachability problems. Our approach combines the recurrence property with a recently proposed class of policies, called chain policies, which composes locally certified trajectory segments extracted from demonstrations to achieve target reachability. We provide sufficient conditions for reachability under this construction and show that the resulting data requirements depend on explicit geometric and recurrence properties of the Hamiltonian rather than the state dimension.
title Symplectic Inductive Bias for Data-Driven Target Reachability in Hamiltonian Systems
topic Optimization and Control
Systems and Control
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.17213