Viscosity solutions in non-commutative variables

Wilfrid Gangbo
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Math

Motivated by parallels between mean field games and random matrix theory, we develop stochastic optimal control problems and viscosity solutions to Hamilton-Jacobi equa-tions in the setting of non-commutative variables. Rather than real vectors, the inputs to the equation are tuples of self-adjoint operators from a tracial von Neumann algebra. The individual noise from mean eld games is replaced by a free semicircular Brownian motion, which describes the large-n limit of Brownian motion on the space of self-adjoint matrices. We introduce a classi-cal common noise from mean eld games into the non-commutative setting as well, allowing the problems to combine both classical and non-commutative randomness. Under certain convexity assumptions, we show that the value of the optimal control problems in the non-commutative setting describes the large-n limit of control problems on tuples of self-adjoint matrices. (This talk is based on works in collaboration with D. Jekel, K. Nam and A. Palmer).


View on Youtube

Back to Long Programs