Latent Thermodynamic Flows: Unified Representation Learning and Generative Modeling of Temperature-Dependent Behaviors from Limited Data

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Main Authors: Qiu, Yunrui, John, Richard, Herron, Lukas, Tiwary, Pratyush
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Qiu, Yunrui
John, Richard
Herron, Lukas
Tiwary, Pratyush
author_facet Qiu, Yunrui
John, Richard
Herron, Lukas
Tiwary, Pratyush
contents Accurate characterization of the equilibrium distributions of complex molecular systems and their dependence on environmental factors such as temperature is essential for understanding thermodynamic properties and transition mechanisms. Projecting these distributions onto meaningful low-dimensional representations enables interpretability and downstream analysis. Recent advances in generative AI, particularly flow models such as Normalizing Flows (NFs), have shown promise in modeling such distributions, but their scope is limited without tailored representation learning. In this work, we introduce Latent Thermodynamic Flows (LaTF), an end-to-end framework that tightly integrates representation learning and generative modeling. LaTF unifies the State Predictive Information Bottleneck (SPIB) with NFs to simultaneously learn low-dimensional latent representations, referred to as Collective Variables (CVs), classify metastable states, and generate equilibrium distributions across temperatures beyond the training data. The two components of representation learning and generative modeling are optimized jointly, ensuring that the learned latent features capture the system's slow, important degrees of freedom while the generative model accurately reproduces the system's equilibrium behavior. We demonstrate LaTF's effectiveness across diverse systems, including a model potential, the Chignolin protein, and cluster of Lennard Jones particles, with thorough evaluations and benchmarking using multiple metrics and extensive simulations. Finally, we apply LaTF to a RNA tetraloop system, where despite using simulation data from only two temperatures, LaTF reconstructs the temperature-dependent structural ensemble and melting behavior, consistent with experimental and prior extensive computational results.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_03174
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Latent Thermodynamic Flows: Unified Representation Learning and Generative Modeling of Temperature-Dependent Behaviors from Limited Data
Qiu, Yunrui
John, Richard
Herron, Lukas
Tiwary, Pratyush
Machine Learning
Statistical Mechanics
Biological Physics
Chemical Physics
Accurate characterization of the equilibrium distributions of complex molecular systems and their dependence on environmental factors such as temperature is essential for understanding thermodynamic properties and transition mechanisms. Projecting these distributions onto meaningful low-dimensional representations enables interpretability and downstream analysis. Recent advances in generative AI, particularly flow models such as Normalizing Flows (NFs), have shown promise in modeling such distributions, but their scope is limited without tailored representation learning. In this work, we introduce Latent Thermodynamic Flows (LaTF), an end-to-end framework that tightly integrates representation learning and generative modeling. LaTF unifies the State Predictive Information Bottleneck (SPIB) with NFs to simultaneously learn low-dimensional latent representations, referred to as Collective Variables (CVs), classify metastable states, and generate equilibrium distributions across temperatures beyond the training data. The two components of representation learning and generative modeling are optimized jointly, ensuring that the learned latent features capture the system's slow, important degrees of freedom while the generative model accurately reproduces the system's equilibrium behavior. We demonstrate LaTF's effectiveness across diverse systems, including a model potential, the Chignolin protein, and cluster of Lennard Jones particles, with thorough evaluations and benchmarking using multiple metrics and extensive simulations. Finally, we apply LaTF to a RNA tetraloop system, where despite using simulation data from only two temperatures, LaTF reconstructs the temperature-dependent structural ensemble and melting behavior, consistent with experimental and prior extensive computational results.
title Latent Thermodynamic Flows: Unified Representation Learning and Generative Modeling of Temperature-Dependent Behaviors from Limited Data
topic Machine Learning
Statistical Mechanics
Biological Physics
Chemical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03174