Polynomial Cost of Adaptation for X -Armed Bandits

Abstract

In the context of stochastic continuum-armed bandits, we present an algorithm that adapts to the unknown smoothness of the objective function. We exhibit and compute a polynomial cost of adaptation to the H{\"o}lder regularity for regret minimization. To do this, we first reconsider the recent lower bound of Locatelli and Carpentier [20], and define and characterize admissible rate functions. Our new algorithm matches any of these minimal rate functions. We provide a finite-time analysis and a thorough discussion about asymptotic optimality.