Benchmarking AI-evolved cosmological structure formation
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arXiv
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| Auteurs principaux: | , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Publié: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866914085251055616 |
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| author | Dong, Xiaofeng Ramachandra, Nesar Habib, Salman Heitmann, Katrin |
| author_facet | Dong, Xiaofeng Ramachandra, Nesar Habib, Salman Heitmann, Katrin |
| contents | The potential of deep learning-based image-to-image translations has recently attracted significant attention. One possible application of such a framework is as a fast, approximate alternative to cosmological simulations, which would be particularly useful in various contexts, including covariance studies, investigations of systematics, and cosmological parameter inference. To investigate different aspects of learning-based cosmological mappings, we choose two approaches for generating suitable cosmological matter fields as datasets: a simple analytical prescription provided by the Zel'dovich approximation, and a numerical N-body method using the Particle-Mesh approach. The evolution of structure formation is modeled using U-Net, a widely employed convolutional image translation framework. Because of the lack of a controlled methodology, validation of these learned mappings requires multiple benchmarks beyond simple visual comparisons and summary statistics. A comprehensive list of metrics is considered, including higher-order correlation functions, conservation laws, topological indicators, and statistical independence of density fields. We find that the U-Net approach performs well only for some of these physical metrics, and accuracy is worse at increasingly smaller scales, where the dynamic range in density is large. By introducing a custom density-weighted loss function during training, we demonstrate a significant improvement in the U-Net results at smaller scales. This study provides an example of how a family of physically motivated benchmarks can, in turn, be used to fine-tune optimization schemes -- such as the density-weighted loss used here -- to significantly enhance the accuracy of scientific machine learning approaches by focusing attention on relevant features. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_06731 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Benchmarking AI-evolved cosmological structure formation Dong, Xiaofeng Ramachandra, Nesar Habib, Salman Heitmann, Katrin Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Computational Physics The potential of deep learning-based image-to-image translations has recently attracted significant attention. One possible application of such a framework is as a fast, approximate alternative to cosmological simulations, which would be particularly useful in various contexts, including covariance studies, investigations of systematics, and cosmological parameter inference. To investigate different aspects of learning-based cosmological mappings, we choose two approaches for generating suitable cosmological matter fields as datasets: a simple analytical prescription provided by the Zel'dovich approximation, and a numerical N-body method using the Particle-Mesh approach. The evolution of structure formation is modeled using U-Net, a widely employed convolutional image translation framework. Because of the lack of a controlled methodology, validation of these learned mappings requires multiple benchmarks beyond simple visual comparisons and summary statistics. A comprehensive list of metrics is considered, including higher-order correlation functions, conservation laws, topological indicators, and statistical independence of density fields. We find that the U-Net approach performs well only for some of these physical metrics, and accuracy is worse at increasingly smaller scales, where the dynamic range in density is large. By introducing a custom density-weighted loss function during training, we demonstrate a significant improvement in the U-Net results at smaller scales. This study provides an example of how a family of physically motivated benchmarks can, in turn, be used to fine-tune optimization schemes -- such as the density-weighted loss used here -- to significantly enhance the accuracy of scientific machine learning approaches by focusing attention on relevant features. |
| title | Benchmarking AI-evolved cosmological structure formation |
| topic | Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Computational Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.06731 |