An abstract effective convergence theorem for stochastic processes, with applications to stochastic approximation

We provide a general theorem on the asymptotic behavior of stochastic processes that conform to a relaxed supermartingale condition. The distinguishing feature of our result is that it provides quantitative convergence guarantees at a much higher level of abstraction and generality than is typically seen in the stochastic approximation literature, formulated in particular in terms of a general modulus τ that, on an intuitive level, captures an effective variant of the uniqueness in expectation of associated solutions. Our convergence rate is highly uniform, depending on very few data beyond τ. We then demonstrate the utility of our result as a unifying framework by deriving new quantitative versions of several key concepts and theorems from stochastic approximation, including the Robbins-Siegmund theorem, Dvoretzky's convergence theorem, and the convergence of stochastic quasi-Fej'er monotone sequences, the latter formulated in a novel and highly general metric context. Throughout, we isolate and discuss special cases of our results which allow for the construction of fast, and in particular linear, rates. Various applications of our results and our general methodology to stochastic approximation are discussed, and in particular explicitly derived in related work of the authors.