Optimal control in stochastic thermodynamics

Optimal processes in Stochastic Thermodynamics

Optimal protocols and optimal transport in stochastic thermodynamics.

Thermodynamics of small systems has become an important field of statistical physics. Such systems are driven out of equilibrium by a control, and the question is naturally posed how such a control can be optimized. We show that optimization problems in small system thermodynamics are solved by (deterministic) optimal transport, for which very efficient numerical methods have been developed, an...

Stochastic Optimal Control in Finance

Preface These are the extended version of the Cattedra Galileiana I gave in April 2003 in Scuola Normale, Pisa. I am grateful to the Society of Amici della Scuola Normale for the funding and to Professors Maurizio Pratelli, Marzia De Donno and Paulo Guasoni for organizing these lectures and their hospitality. In these notes, I give a very quick introduction to stochastic optimal control and the...

Stochastic optimal control theory

Control theory is a mathematical description of how to act optimally to gain future rewards. In this paper I give an introduction to deterministic and stochastic control theory; partial observability, learning and the combined problem of inference and control. Subsequently, I discuss a class of non-linear stochastic control problems that can be efficiently solved using a path integral. In this ...

Pathwise Stochastic Optimal Control

This paper approaches optimal control problems for discrete-time controlled Markov processes by representing the value of the problem in a dual Lagrangian form; the value is expressed as an infimum over a family of Lagrangian martingales of an expectation of a pathwise supremum of the objective adjusted by the Lagrangian martingale term. This representation opens up the possibility of numerical...