Singular HJB equations with applications to KPZ on the real line

This paper is devoted to studying Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations with distribution-valued coefficients, which are not well-defined in the classical sense and are understood by using the paracontrolled distribution method introduced in (Gubinelli et al. in Forum Math Pi 3(6):1, 2015). By a new characterization of weighted Hölder spaces and Zvonkin’s transformation we prove some new a priori estimates, and therefore establish the global well-posedness for singular HJB equations. As applications, we obtain global well-posedness in polynomial weighted Hölder spaces for KPZ type equations on the real line, as well as modified KPZ equations for which the Cole–Hopf transformation is not applicable.