A positive resolution of the gap-entropy conjecture

Abstract

We prove the gap-entropy conjecture for fixed-confidence best-arm identification with independent unit-variance Gaussian arms, means in $[0,1]$, and a unique optimal arm. For each suboptimal arm $i$, let $\Delta_i=\mu_*-\mu_i$ be its gap from the optimal mean, and write $H=\sum_{i\ne *}\Delta_i^{-2}$. Let $p_r$ be the fraction of $H$ contributed by arms with $2^{-(r+1)}<\Delta_i\le2^{-r}$, and let $\mathrm{Ent}(I)=\sum_{r:p_r>0} p_r\log(1/p_r)$. Among all algorithms that identify the optimal arm with probability at least $1-\delta$ on every Gaussian instance, the optimal expected number of samples on a given instance, averaged over all permutations of the arm labels, is within absolute constant factors of $H(\log(1/\delta)+\mathrm{Ent}(I))$. Moreover, there is an algorithm, independent of the instance, whose expected number of samples is bounded by a constant multiple of this quantity plus $g^{-2}\log\log(e^e/g)$, where $g=\min_{i\ne *}\Delta_i$ is the gap to the closest competitor.