We propose a new method called the N-particle underdamped Langevin algorithm for optimizing a special class of non-linear functionals defined over the space of probability measures. Examples of problems with this formulation include training mean-field neural networks, maximum mean discrepancy minimization and kernel Stein discrepancy minimization. Our algorithm is based on a novel spacetime discretization of the mean-field underdamped Langevin dynamics, for which we provide a new, fast mixing guarantee. In addition, we demonstrate that our algorithm converges globally in total variation distance, bridging the theoretical gap between the dynamics and its practical implementation.
With advances in scientific computing and mathematical modeling, complex scientific phenomena such as galaxy formations and rocket propulsion can now be reliably simulated. Such simulations can however be very time-intensive, requiring millions of CPU hours to perform. One solution is multi-fidelity emulation, which uses data of different fidelities to train an efficient predictive model which emulates the expensive simulator. For complex scientific problems and with careful elicitation from scientists, such multi-fidelity data may often be linked by a directed acyclic graph (DAG) representing its scientific model dependencies. We thus propose a new Graphical Multi-fidelity Gaussian Process (GMGP) model, which embeds this DAG structure (capturing scientific dependencies) within a Gaussian process framework. We show that the GMGP has desirable modeling traits via two Markov properties, and admits a scalable algorithm for recursive computation of the posterior mean and variance along at each depth level of the DAG. We also present a novel experimental design methodology over the DAG given an experimental budget, and propose a nonlinear extension of the GMGP via deep Gaussian processes. The advantages of the GMGP are then demonstrated via a suite of numerical experiments and an application to emulation of heavy-ion collisions, which can be used to study the conditions of matter in the Universe shortly after the Big Bang. The proposed model has broader uses in data fusion applications with graphical structure, which we further discuss.
We present a manifold-based autoencoder method for learning nonlinear dynamics in time, notably partial differential equations (PDEs), in which the manifold latent space evolves according to Ricci flow. This can be accomplished by simulating Ricci flow in a physics-informed setting, and manifold quantities can be matched so that Ricci flow is empirically achieved. With our methodology, the manifold is learned as part of the training procedure, so ideal geometries may be discerned, while the evolution simultaneously induces a more accommodating latent representation over static methods. We present our method on a range of numerical experiments consisting of PDEs that encompass desirable characteristics such as periodicity and randomness, remarking error on in-distribution and extrapolation scenarios.
Spectral methods yield numerical solutions of the Galerkin-truncated versions of nonlinear partial differential equations involved especially in fluid dynamics. In the presence of discontinuities, such as shocks, spectral approximations develop Gibbs oscillations near the discontinuity. This causes the numerical solution to deviate quickly from the true solution. For spectral approximations of the 1D inviscid Burgers equation, nonlinear wave resonances lead to the formation of tygers in well-resolved areas of the flow, far from the shock. Recently, Besse(to be published) has proposed novel spectral relaxation (SR) and spectral purging (SP) schemes for the removal of tygers and Gibbs oscillations in spectral approximations of nonlinear conservation laws. For the 1D inviscid Burgers equation, it is shown that the novel SR and SP approximations of the solution converge strongly in L2 norm to the entropic weak solution, under an appropriate choice of kernels and related parameters. In this work, we carry out a detailed numerical investigation of SR and SP schemes when applied to the 1D inviscid Burgers equation and report the efficiency of shock capture and the removal of tygers. We then extend our study to systems of nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws - such as the 2x2 system of the shallow water equations and the standard 3x3 system of 1D compressible Euler equations. For the latter, we generalise the implementation of SR methods to non-periodic problems using Chebyshev polynomials. We then turn to singular flow in the 1D wall approximation of the 3D-axisymmetric wall-bounded incompressible Euler equation. Here, in order to determine the blowup time of the solution, we compare the decay of the width of the analyticity strip, obtained from the pure pseudospectral method, with the improved estimate obtained using the novel spectral relaxation scheme.
We present a simple and unified analysis of the Johnson-Lindenstrauss (JL) lemma, a cornerstone in the field of dimensionality reduction critical for managing high-dimensional data. Our approach not only simplifies the understanding but also unifies various constructions under the JL framework, including spherical, binary-coin, sparse JL, Gaussian and sub-Gaussian models. This simplification and unification make significant strides in preserving the intrinsic geometry of data, essential across diverse applications from streaming algorithms to reinforcement learning. Notably, we deliver the first rigorous proof of the spherical construction's effectiveness and provide a general class of sub-Gaussian constructions within this simplified framework. At the heart of our contribution is an innovative extension of the Hanson-Wright inequality to high dimensions, complete with explicit constants. By employing simple yet powerful probabilistic tools and analytical techniques, such as an enhanced diagonalization process, our analysis not only solidifies the JL lemma's theoretical foundation by removing an independence assumption but also extends its practical reach, showcasing its adaptability and importance in contemporary computational algorithms.
We analyze the Schr\"odingerisation method for quantum simulation of a general class of non-unitary dynamics with inhomogeneous source terms. The Schr\"odingerisation technique, introduced in \cite{JLY22a,JLY23}, transforms any linear ordinary and partial differential equations with non-unitary dynamics into a system under unitary dynamics via a warped phase transition that maps the equations into a higher dimension, making them suitable for quantum simulation. This technique can also be applied to these equations with inhomogeneous terms modeling source or forcing terms or boundary and interface conditions, and discrete dynamical systems such as iterative methods in numerical linear algebra, through extra equations in the system. Difficulty airses with the presense of inhomogeneous terms since it can change the stability of the original system. In this paper, we systematically study--both theoretically and numerically--the important issue of recovering the original variables from the Schr\"odingerized equations, even when the evolution operator contains unstable modes. We show that even with unstable modes, one can still construct a stable scheme, yet to recover the original variable one needs to use suitable data in the extended space. We analyze and compare both the discrete and continuous Fourier transforms used in the extended dimension, and derive corresponding error estimates, which allows one to use the more appropriate transform for specific equations. We also provide a smoother initialization for the Schrod\"odingerized system to gain higher order accuracy in the extended space. We homogenize the inhomogeneous terms with a stretch transformation, making it easier to recover the original variable. Our recovering technique also provides a simple and generic framework to solve general ill-posed problems in a computationally stable way.
The solution approximation for partial differential equations (PDEs) can be substantially improved using smooth basis functions. The recently introduced mollified basis functions are constructed through mollification, or convolution, of cell-wise defined piecewise polynomials with a smooth mollifier of certain characteristics. The properties of the mollified basis functions are governed by the order of the piecewise functions and the smoothness of the mollifier. In this work, we exploit the high-order and high-smoothness properties of the mollified basis functions for solving PDEs through the point collocation method. The basis functions are evaluated at a set of collocation points in the domain. In addition, boundary conditions are imposed at a set of boundary collocation points distributed over the domain boundaries. To ensure the stability of the resulting linear system of equations, the number of collocation points is set larger than the total number of basis functions. The resulting linear system is overdetermined and is solved using the least square technique. The presented numerical examples confirm the convergence of the proposed approximation scheme for Poisson, linear elasticity, and biharmonic problems. We study in particular the influence of the mollifier and the spatial distribution of the collocation points.
We prove explicit uniform two-sided bounds for the phase functions of Bessel functions and of their derivatives. As a consequence, we obtain new enclosures for the zeros of Bessel functions and their derivatives in terms of inverse values of some elementary functions. These bounds are valid, with a few exceptions, for all zeros and all Bessel functions with non-negative indices. We provide numerical evidence showing that our bounds either improve or closely match the best previously known ones.
Explicit time integration schemes coupled with Galerkin discretizations of time-dependent partial differential equations require solving a linear system with the mass matrix at each time step. For applications in structural dynamics, the solution of the linear system is frequently approximated through so-called mass lumping, which consists in replacing the mass matrix by some diagonal approximation. Mass lumping has been widely used in engineering practice for decades already and has a sound mathematical theory supporting it for finite element methods using the classical Lagrange basis. However, the theory for more general basis functions is still missing. Our paper partly addresses this shortcoming. Some special and practically relevant properties of lumped mass matrices are proved and we discuss how these properties naturally extend to banded and Kronecker product matrices whose structure allows to solve linear systems very efficiently. Our theoretical results are applied to isogeometric discretizations but are not restricted to them.
Mendelian randomization uses genetic variants as instrumental variables to make causal inferences about the effects of modifiable risk factors on diseases from observational data. One of the major challenges in Mendelian randomization is that many genetic variants are only modestly or even weakly associated with the risk factor of interest, a setting known as many weak instruments. Many existing methods, such as the popular inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method, could be biased when the instrument strength is weak. To address this issue, the debiased IVW (dIVW) estimator, which is shown to be robust to many weak instruments, was recently proposed. However, this estimator still has non-ignorable bias when the effective sample size is small. In this paper, we propose a modified debiased IVW (mdIVW) estimator by multiplying a modification factor to the original dIVW estimator. After this simple correction, we show that the bias of the mdIVW estimator converges to zero at a faster rate than that of the dIVW estimator under some regularity conditions. Moreover, the mdIVW estimator has smaller variance than the dIVW estimator.We further extend the proposed method to account for the presence of instrumental variable selection and balanced horizontal pleiotropy. We demonstrate the improvement of the mdIVW estimator over the dIVW estimator through extensive simulation studies and real data analysis.
Mass lumping techniques are commonly employed in explicit time integration schemes for problems in structural dynamics and both avoid solving costly linear systems with the consistent mass matrix and increase the critical time step. In isogeometric analysis, the critical time step is constrained by so-called "outlier" frequencies, representing the inaccurate high frequency part of the spectrum. Removing or dampening these high frequencies is paramount for fast explicit solution techniques. In this work, we propose robust mass lumping and outlier removal techniques for nontrivial geometries, including multipatch and trimmed geometries. Our lumping strategies provably do not deteriorate (and often improve) the CFL condition of the original problem and are combined with deflation techniques to remove persistent outlier frequencies. Numerical experiments reveal the advantages of the method, especially for simulations covering large time spans where they may halve the number of iterations with little or no effect on the numerical solution.