{"paper":{"title":"The Gap Between Model-Based and Model-Free Methods on the Linear Quadratic Regulator: An Asymptotic Viewpoint","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["math.OC","stat.ML"],"primary_cat":"cs.LG","authors_text":"Benjamin Recht, Stephen Tu","submitted_at":"2018-12-09T22:24:26Z","abstract_excerpt":"The effectiveness of model-based versus model-free methods is a long-standing question in reinforcement learning (RL). Motivated by recent empirical success of RL on continuous control tasks, we study the sample complexity of popular model-based and model-free algorithms on the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR). We show that for policy evaluation, a simple model-based plugin method requires asymptotically less samples than the classical least-squares temporal difference (LSTD) estimator to reach the same quality of solution; the sample complexity gap between the two methods can be at least a fa"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"1812.03565","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}