arXiv subjects

Ananyabrata Barua

Publications and source records attributed to Ananyabrata Barua.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Semiparametric Robust Estimation of Population Location

Real-world measurements often comprise a dominant signal contaminated by a noisy background. Robustly estimating the dominant signal in practice has been a fundamental statistical problem. Classically, mixture models have been used to cluster the heterogeneous population into homogeneous components. Modeling such data with fully parametric models risks bias under misspecification, while fully nonparametric approaches can dissipate power and computational resources. We propose a middle path: a semiparametric method that models only the dominant component parametrically and leaves the background completely nonparametric, yet remains computationally scalable and statistically robust. So instead of outlier downweighting, traditionally done in robust statistics literature, we maximize the observed likelihood such that the noisy background is absorbed by the nonparametric component. Computationally, we propose a new approximate FFT-accelerated likelihood maximization algorithm. Empirically, this FFT plug-in achieves order-of-magnitude speedups over vanilla weighted EM while preserving statistical accuracy and large sample properties.

stat.CO↗

arXiv2026

Optimal Sample Complexity for Single Time-Scale Actor-Critic with Momentum

We establish an optimal sample complexity of $O(ε^{-2})$ for obtaining an $ε$-optimal global policy using a single-timescale actor-critic (AC) algorithm in infinite-horizon discounted Markov decision processes (MDPs) with finite state-action spaces, improving upon the prior state of the art of $O(ε^{-3})$. Our approach applies STORM (STOchastic Recursive Momentum) to reduce variance in the critic updates. However, because samples are drawn from a nonstationary occupancy measure induced by the evolving policy, variance reduction via STORM alone is insufficient. To address this challenge, we maintain a buffer of small fraction of recent samples and uniformly sample from it for each critic update. Importantly, these mechanisms are compatible with existing deep learning architectures and require only minor modifications, without compromising practical applicability.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2026

Monotone and Conservative Policy Iteration Beyond the Tabular Case

We introduce Reliable Policy Iteration (RPI) and Conservative RPI (CRPI), variants of Policy Iteration (PI) and Conservative PI (CPI), that retain tabular guarantees under function approximation. RPI uses a novel Bellman-constrained optimization for policy evaluation. We show that RPI restores the textbook \textit{monotonicity} of value estimates and that these estimates provably \textit{lower-bound} the true return; moreover, their limit partially satisfies the \textit{unprojected} Bellman equation. CRPI shares RPI's evaluation, but updates policies conservatively by maximizing a new performance-difference \textit{lower bound} that explicitly accounts for function-approximation-induced errors. CRPI inherits RPI's guarantees and, crucially, admits per-step improvement bounds. In initial simulations, RPI and CRPI outperform PI and its variants. Our work addresses a foundational gap in RL: popular algorithms such as TRPO and PPO derive from tabular CPI yet are deployed with function approximation, where CPI's guarantees often fail-leading to divergence, oscillations, or convergence to suboptimal policies. By restoring PI/CPI-style guarantees for \textit{arbitrary} function classes, RPI and CRPI provide a principled basis for next-generation RL.

cs.LG↗