arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Pierre-Louis Lions.
We study an infinite horizon stochastic optimal control problem by means of the associated Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. The problem we are studying has the particularity of having a discount factor which can take both signs, depending on the value of the state.
We present a comparison principle for unbounded viscosity solutions to Hamilton-Jacobi equations on Wasserstein spaces of probability measures over $R^d$ . In addition to the use of standard techniques of viscosity solutions, our approach requires a key extension on Wasserstein spaces of a result of perturbed optimization on Banach spaces due to Stegall.
We prove the convergence of a viscous approximation to an one dimensional local mean field type planning problem with singular initial and terminal measures. Then we use this result to give a rigorous proof to a Freidlin-Ventchel-type Large Deviations Principle for the height of the $1+1$ KPZ equation.
We consider the conditional control problem introduced by P.L. Lions in his lectures at the Collège de France in November 2016. In his lectures, Lions emphasized some of the major differences with the analysis of classical stochastic optimal control problems, and in so doing, raised the question of the possible differences between the value functions resulting from optimization over the class of Markovian controls as opposed to the general family of open loop controls. The goal of the paper is to elucidate this quandary and provide elements of response to Lions' original conjecture. First, we justify the mathematical formulation of the conditional control problem by the description of practical model from evolutionary biology. Next, we relax the original formulation by the introduction of \emph{soft} as opposed to hard killing, and using a \emph{mimicking} argument, we reduce the open loop optimization problem to an optimization over a specific class of feedback controls. After proving existence of optimal feedback control functions, we prove a superposition principle allowing us to recast the original stochastic control problems as deterministic control problems for dynamical systems of probability Gibbs measures. Next, we characterize the solutions by forward-backward systems of coupled non-linear Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) very much in the spirit of the Mean Field Game (MFG) systems. From there, we identify a common optimizer, proving the conjecture of equality of the value functions. Finally we illustrate the results by convincing numerical experiments.
The long-time behavior of stochastic Hamilton-Jacobi equations is analyzed, including the stochastic mean curvature flow as a special case. In a variety of settings, new and sharpened results are obtained. Among them are (i) a regularization by noise phenomenon for the mean curvature flow with homogeneous noise which establishes that the inclusion of noise speeds up the decay of solutions, and (ii) the long-time convergence of solutions to spatially inhomogeneous stochastic Hamilton-Jacobi equations. A number of motivating examples about nonlinear stochastic partial differential equations are presented in the appendix.
We consider linear and nonlinear transport equations with irregular velocity fields, motivated by models coming from mean field games. The velocity fields are assumed to increase in each coordinate, and the divergence therefore fails to be absolutely continuous with respect to the Lebesgue measure in general. For such velocity fields, the well-posedness of first- and second-order linear transport equations in Lebesgue spaces is established, as well as the existence and uniqueness of regular ODE and SDE Lagrangian flows. These results are then applied to the study of certain nonconservative, nonlinear systems of transport type, which are used to model mean field games in a finite state space. A notion of weak solution is identified for which a unique minimal and maximal solution exist, which do not coincide in general. A selection-by-noise result is established for a relevant example to demonstrate that different types of noise can select any of the admissible solutions in the vanishing noise limit.
We study first- and second-order linear transport equations, as well as ODE and SDE flows, with velocity fields satisfying a one-sided Lipschitz condition. Depending on the time direction, the flows are either compressive or expansive. In the compressive regime, we characterize the stable continuous distributional solutions of both the first and second-order nonconservative transport equations as the unique viscosity solution. Our results in the expansive regime complement the theory of Bouchut, James, and Mancini, and we provide a complete theory for both the conservative and nonconservative equations in Lebesgue spaces, as well as proving the existence, uniqueness, and stability of the regular Lagrangian ODE flow. We also provide analogous results in this context for second order equations and SDEs with degenerate noise coefficients that are constant in the spatial variable.
We develop a theory of existence and uniqueness of solutions of MFG master equations when the initial condition is Lipschitz continuous. Namely, we show that as long as the solution of the master equation is Lipschitz continuous in space, it is uniquely defined. Because we do not impose any structural assumptions, such as monotonicity for instance, there is a maximal time of existence for the notion of solution we provide. We analyze three cases: the case of a finite state space, the case of master equation set on a Hilbert space, and finally on the set of probability measures, all in cases involving common noises. In the last case, the Lipschitz continuity we refer to is on the gradient of the value function with respect to the state variable of the player.
This paper presents a novel approach to characterize the dynamics of the limit spectrum of large random matrices. This approach is based upon the notion we call "spectral dominance". In particular, we show that the limit spectral measure can be determined as the derivative of the unique viscosity solution of a partial integro-differential equation. This also allows to make general and "short" proofs for the convergence problem. We treat the cases of Dyson Brownian motions, Wishart processes and present a general class of models for which this characterization holds.
We present examples of equations arising in the theory of mean field games that can be reduced to a system in smaller dimensions. Such examples come up in certain applications, and they can be used as modeling tools to numerically approximate more complicated problems. General conditions that bring about reduction phenomena are presented in both the finite and infinite state-space cases. We also compare solutions of equations with noise with their reduced versions in a small-noise expansion.
We study the interplay between the regularity of paths and Hamiltonians in the theory of pathwise Hamilton-Jacobi equations with the use of interpolation methods. The regularity of the paths is measured with respect to Sobolev, Besov, Hölder, and variation norms, and criteria for the Hamiltonians are presented in terms of both regularity and structure. We also explore various properties of functions that are representable as the difference of convex functions, the largest space of Hamiltonians for which the equation is well-posed for all continuous paths. Finally, we discuss some open problems and conjectures.
We present an analysis of the Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm, used on the Bitcoin blockchain, using a Mean Field Game framework. Using a master equation, we provide an equilibrium characterization of the total computational power devoted to mining the blockchain (hashrate). From a simple setting we show how the master equation approach allows us to enrich the model by relaxing most of the simplifying assumptions. The essential structure of the game is preserved across all the enrichments. In deterministic settings, the hashrate ultimately reaches a steady state in which it increases at the rate of technological progress. In stochastic settings, there exists a target for the hashrate for every possible random state. As a consequence, we show that in equilibrium the security of the underlying blockchain is either $i)$ constant, or $ii)$ increases with the demand for the underlying cryptocurrency.
We present results of existence, regularity and uniqueness of solutions of the master equation associated with the mean field planning problem in the finite state space case, in the presence of a common noise. The results hold under monotonicity assumptions, which are used crucially in the different proofs of the paper. We also make a link with the trajectories induced by the solution of the master equation and start a discussion on the case of boundary conditions.
This note is concerned with a modeling question arising from the mean field games theory. We show how to model mean field games involving a major player which has a strategic advantage, while only allowing closed loop markovian strategies for all the players. We illustrate this property through three examples.
We consider a class of closed loop stochastic optimal control problems in finite time horizon, in which the cost is an expectation conditional on the event that the process has not exited a given bounded domain. An important difficulty is that the probability of the event that conditionates the strategy decays as time grows. The optimality conditions consist of a system of partial differential equations, including a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation (backward w.r.t. time) and a (forward w.r.t. time) Fokker-Planck equation for the law of the conditioned process. The two equations are supplemented with Dirichlet conditions. Next, we discuss the asymptotic behavior as the time horizon tends to $+\infty$. This leads to a new kind of optimal control problem driven by an eigenvalue problem related to a continuity equation with Dirichlet conditions on the boundary. We prove existence for the latter. We also propose numerical methods and supplement the various theoretical aspects with numerical simulations.
We consider multi-dimensional junction problems for first- and second-order pde with Kirchoff-type Neumann boundary conditions and we show that their generalized viscosity solutions are unique. It follows that any viscosity-type approximation of the junction problem converges to a unique limit. The results here are the first of this kind and extend previous work by the authors for one-dimensional junctions. The proofs are based on a careful analysis of the behavior of the viscosity solutions near the junction, including a blow-up argument that reduces the general problem to a one-dimensional one. As in our previous note, no convexity assumptions and control theoretic interpretation of the solutions are needed.
We study the homogenization properties in the small viscosity limit and in periodic environments of the (viscous) backward-forward mean-field games system. We consider separated Hamiltonians and provide results for systems with (i) "smoothing" coupling and general initial and terminal data, and (ii) with "local coupling" but well-prepared data.The limit is a first-order forward-backward system. In the nonlocal coupling case, the averaged system is of mfg-type, which is well-posed in some cases. For the problems with local coupling, the homogenization result is proved assuming that the formally obtained limit system has smooth solutions with well prepared initial and terminal data. It is also shown, using a very general example (potential mfg), that the limit system is not necessarily of mfg-type.
We present two new sharp regularity results (regularizing effect and propagation of regularity) for viscosity solutions of uniformly convex space homogeneous Hamilton-Jacobi equations. In turn, these estimates yield new intermittent stochastic regularization results for pathwise (stochastic) viscosity solutions of Hamilton-Jacobi equations with uniformly convex Hamiltonians and rough multiplicative time dependence. Finally, we use the intermittent estimates to study the long time behavior of the pathwise (stochastic) viscosity solutions of convex Hamilton-Jacobi equations.