Independent Learning of Nash Equilibria in Partially Observable Markov Potential Games with Decoupled Dynamics

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Jordan, Philip, Kamgarpour, Maryam
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Jordan, Philip
Kamgarpour, Maryam
author_facet Jordan, Philip
Kamgarpour, Maryam
contents We study Nash equilibrium learning in partially observable Markov games (POMGs), a multi-agent reinforcement learning framework in which agents cannot fully observe the underlying state. Prior work in this setting relies on centralization or information sharing, and suffers from sample and computational complexity that scales exponentially in the number of players. We focus on a subclass of POMGs with independent state transitions, where agents remain coupled through their rewards, and assume that the underlying fully observed Markov game is a Markov potential game. For this class, we present an independent learning algorithm in which players, observing only their own actions and observations and without communication, jointly converge to an approximate Nash equilibrium. Due to partial observability, optimal policies may in general depend on the full action-observation history. Under a filter stability assumption, we show that policies based on finite history windows provide sufficient approximation guarantees. This enables us to approximate the POMG by a surrogate Markov game that is near-potential, leading to quasi-polynomial sample and computational complexity for independent Nash equilibrium learning in the underlying POMG.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_06377
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Independent Learning of Nash Equilibria in Partially Observable Markov Potential Games with Decoupled Dynamics
Jordan, Philip
Kamgarpour, Maryam
Computer Science and Game Theory
Machine Learning
Multiagent Systems
We study Nash equilibrium learning in partially observable Markov games (POMGs), a multi-agent reinforcement learning framework in which agents cannot fully observe the underlying state. Prior work in this setting relies on centralization or information sharing, and suffers from sample and computational complexity that scales exponentially in the number of players. We focus on a subclass of POMGs with independent state transitions, where agents remain coupled through their rewards, and assume that the underlying fully observed Markov game is a Markov potential game. For this class, we present an independent learning algorithm in which players, observing only their own actions and observations and without communication, jointly converge to an approximate Nash equilibrium. Due to partial observability, optimal policies may in general depend on the full action-observation history. Under a filter stability assumption, we show that policies based on finite history windows provide sufficient approximation guarantees. This enables us to approximate the POMG by a surrogate Markov game that is near-potential, leading to quasi-polynomial sample and computational complexity for independent Nash equilibrium learning in the underlying POMG.
title Independent Learning of Nash Equilibria in Partially Observable Markov Potential Games with Decoupled Dynamics
topic Computer Science and Game Theory
Machine Learning
Multiagent Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.06377