The BdryMatérn GP: Reliable incorporation of boundary information on irregular domains for Gaussian process modeling

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ding, Liang, Mak, Simon, Wu, C. F. Jeff
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866908447699632128
author Ding, Liang
Mak, Simon
Wu, C. F. Jeff
author_facet Ding, Liang
Mak, Simon
Wu, C. F. Jeff
contents Gaussian processes (GPs) are broadly used as surrogate models for expensive computer simulators of complex phenomena. However, a key bottleneck is that its training data are generated from this expensive simulator and thus can be highly limited. A promising solution is to supplement the learning model with boundary information from scientific knowledge. However, despite recent work on boundary-integrated GPs, such models largely cannot accommodate boundary information on irregular (i.e., non-hypercube) domains, and do not provide sample path smoothness control or approximation error analysis, both of which are important for reliable surrogate modeling. We thus propose a novel BdryMatérn GP modeling framework, which can reliably integrate Dirichlet, Neumann and Robin boundaries on an irregular connected domain with a boundary set that is twice-differentiable almost everywhere. Our model leverages a new BdryMatérn covariance kernel derived in path integral form via a stochastic partial differential equation formulation. Similar to the GP with Matérn kernel, we prove that sample paths from the BdryMatérn GP satisfy the desired boundaries with smoothness control on its derivatives. We further present an efficient approximation procedure for the BdryMatérn kernel using finite element modeling with rigorous error analysis. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the BdryMatérn GP in a suite of numerical experiments on incorporating broad boundaries on irregular domains.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_09178
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The BdryMatérn GP: Reliable incorporation of boundary information on irregular domains for Gaussian process modeling
Ding, Liang
Mak, Simon
Wu, C. F. Jeff
Methodology
Statistics Theory
Machine Learning
Gaussian processes (GPs) are broadly used as surrogate models for expensive computer simulators of complex phenomena. However, a key bottleneck is that its training data are generated from this expensive simulator and thus can be highly limited. A promising solution is to supplement the learning model with boundary information from scientific knowledge. However, despite recent work on boundary-integrated GPs, such models largely cannot accommodate boundary information on irregular (i.e., non-hypercube) domains, and do not provide sample path smoothness control or approximation error analysis, both of which are important for reliable surrogate modeling. We thus propose a novel BdryMatérn GP modeling framework, which can reliably integrate Dirichlet, Neumann and Robin boundaries on an irregular connected domain with a boundary set that is twice-differentiable almost everywhere. Our model leverages a new BdryMatérn covariance kernel derived in path integral form via a stochastic partial differential equation formulation. Similar to the GP with Matérn kernel, we prove that sample paths from the BdryMatérn GP satisfy the desired boundaries with smoothness control on its derivatives. We further present an efficient approximation procedure for the BdryMatérn kernel using finite element modeling with rigorous error analysis. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the BdryMatérn GP in a suite of numerical experiments on incorporating broad boundaries on irregular domains.
title The BdryMatérn GP: Reliable incorporation of boundary information on irregular domains for Gaussian process modeling
topic Methodology
Statistics Theory
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09178