Forward-Backward Stochastic Differential Equations (FBSDEs)

Convergence of the Markovian iteration for coupled FBSDEs via a differentiation approach ArXiv ID: 2504.02814 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract In this paper, we investigate the Markovian iteration method for solving coupled forward-backward stochastic differential equations (FBSDEs) featuring a fully coupled forward drift, meaning the drift term explicitly depends on both the forward and backward processes. An FBSDE system typically involves three stochastic processes: the forward process $X$, the backward process $Y$ representing the solution, and the $Z$ process corresponding to the scaled derivative of $Y$. Prior research by Bender and Zhang (2008) has established convergence results for iterative schemes dealing with $Y$-coupled FBSDEs. However, extending these results to equations with $Z$ coupling poses significant challenges, especially in uniformly controlling the Lipschitz constant of the decoupling fields across iterations and time steps within a fixed-point framework. To overcome this issue, we propose a novel differentiation-based method for handling the $Z$ process. This approach enables improved management of the Lipschitz continuity of decoupling fields, facilitating the well-posedness of the discretized FBSDE system with fully coupled drift. We rigorously prove the convergence of our Markovian iteration method in this more complex setting. Finally, numerical experiments confirm our theoretical insights, showcasing the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed methodology. ...

The deep multi-FBSDE method: a robust deep learning method for coupled FBSDEs ArXiv ID: 2503.13193 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract We introduce the deep multi-FBSDE method for robust approximation of coupled forward-backward stochastic differential equations (FBSDEs), focusing on cases where the deep BSDE method of Han, Jentzen, and E (2018) fails to converge. To overcome the convergence issues, we consider a family of FBSDEs that are equivalent to the original problem in the sense that they satisfy the same associated partial differential equation (PDE). Our algorithm proceeds in two phases: first, we approximate the initial condition for the FBSDE family, and second, we approximate the original FBSDE using the initial condition approximated in the first phase. Numerical experiments show that our method converges even when the standard deep BSDE method does not. ...

Simultaneously Solving FBSDEs and their Associated Semilinear Elliptic PDEs with Small Neural Operators ArXiv ID: 2410.14788 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract Forward-backwards stochastic differential equations (FBSDEs) play an important role in optimal control, game theory, economics, mathematical finance, and in reinforcement learning. Unfortunately, the available FBSDE solvers operate on \textit{“individual”} FBSDEs, meaning that they cannot provide a computationally feasible strategy for solving large families of FBSDEs, as these solvers must be re-run several times. \textit{“Neural operators”} (NOs) offer an alternative approach for \textit{“simultaneously solving”} large families of decoupled FBSDEs by directly approximating the solution operator mapping \textit{“inputs:”} terminal conditions and dynamics of the backwards process to \textit{“outputs:”} solutions to the associated FBSDE. Though universal approximation theorems (UATs) guarantee the existence of such NOs, these NOs are unrealistically large. Upon making only a few simple theoretically-guided tweaks to the standard convolutional NO build, we confirm that ``small’’ NOs can uniformly approximate the solution operator to structured families of FBSDEs with random terminal time, uniformly on suitable compact sets determined by Sobolev norms using a logarithmic depth, a constant width, and a polynomial rank in the reciprocal approximation error. This result is rooted in our second result, and main contribution to the NOs for PDE literature, showing that our convolutional NOs of similar depth and width but grow only \textit{“quadratically”} (at a dimension-free rate) when uniformly approximating the solution operator of the associated class of semilinear Elliptic PDEs to these families of FBSDEs. A key insight into how NOs work we uncover is that the convolutional layers of our NO can approximately implement the fixed point iteration used to prove the existence of a unique solution to these semilinear Elliptic PDEs. ...

Representation of forward performance criteria with random endowment via FBSDE and its application to forward optimized certainty equivalent ArXiv ID: 2401.00103 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract We extend the notion of forward performance criteria to settings with random endowment in incomplete markets. Building on these results, we introduce and develop the novel concept of \textit{“forward optimized certainty equivalent (forward OCE)”}, which offers a genuinely dynamic valuation mechanism that accommodates progressively adaptive market model updates, stochastic risk preferences, and incoming claims with arbitrary maturities. In parallel, we develop a new methodology to analyze the emerging stochastic optimization problems by directly studying the candidate optimal control processes for both the primal and dual problems. Specifically, we derive two new systems of forward-backward stochastic differential equations (FBSDEs) and establish necessary and sufficient conditions for optimality, and various equivalences between the two problems. This new approach is general and complements the existing one for forward performance criteria with random endowment based on backward stochastic partial differential equations (backward SPDEs) for the related value functions. We, also, consider representative examples for both forward performance criteria with random endowment and for forward OCE. Furthermore, for the case of exponential criteria, we investigate the connection between forward OCE and forward entropic risk measures. ...