Existence of Optimal Policy in Markov Decision Process

In this blog, we will prove the following theorem: Optimal Policy Existence Theorem: For any Markov Decision Process, There exists an optimal policy $\pi_\star $ that is better than or equal to all other policies, $ \pi_\star \geq \pi , \forall \pi$ All optimal policies achieve the optimal value function, $V_{\pi_\star}(s)=V_\star(s)$ All optimal policies achieve the optimal action-value function $Q_{\pi_\star}(s,a)=Q_\star(s,a)$ Definition To simplify the exposition, we first define some basic concepts....

September 12, 2022 · 8 min