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Auteurs principaux: Ashworth, Cassidy, Liò, Pietro, Caso, Francesco
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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Accès en ligne:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.16591
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author Ashworth, Cassidy
Liò, Pietro
Caso, Francesco
author_facet Ashworth, Cassidy
Liò, Pietro
Caso, Francesco
contents Deep learning models have proven enormously successful at using multiple layers of representation to learn relevant features of structured data. Encoding physical symmetries into these models can improve performance on difficult tasks, and recent work has motivated the principle of parameter symmetry breaking and restoration as a unifying mechanism underlying their hierarchical learning dynamics. We evaluate the role of parameter symmetry and network expressivity in the generalisation behaviour of neural networks when learning a real-space renormalisation group (RG) transformation, using the central limit theorem (CLT) as a test case map. We consider simple multilayer perceptrons (MLPs) and graph neural networks (GNNs), and vary weight symmetries and activation functions across architectures. Our results reveal a competition between symmetry constraints and expressivity, with overly complex or overconstrained models generalising poorly. We analytically demonstrate this poor generalisation behaviour for certain constrained MLP architectures by recasting the CLT as a cumulant recursion relation and making use of an established framework to propagate cumulants through MLPs. We also empirically validate an extension of this framework from MLPs to GNNs, elucidating the internal information processing performed by these more complex models. These findings offer new insight into the learning dynamics of symmetric networks and their limitations in modelling structured physical transformations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_16591
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Symmetry and Generalisation in Neural Approximations of Renormalisation Transformations
Ashworth, Cassidy
Liò, Pietro
Caso, Francesco
Machine Learning
Statistical Mechanics
Artificial Intelligence
Deep learning models have proven enormously successful at using multiple layers of representation to learn relevant features of structured data. Encoding physical symmetries into these models can improve performance on difficult tasks, and recent work has motivated the principle of parameter symmetry breaking and restoration as a unifying mechanism underlying their hierarchical learning dynamics. We evaluate the role of parameter symmetry and network expressivity in the generalisation behaviour of neural networks when learning a real-space renormalisation group (RG) transformation, using the central limit theorem (CLT) as a test case map. We consider simple multilayer perceptrons (MLPs) and graph neural networks (GNNs), and vary weight symmetries and activation functions across architectures. Our results reveal a competition between symmetry constraints and expressivity, with overly complex or overconstrained models generalising poorly. We analytically demonstrate this poor generalisation behaviour for certain constrained MLP architectures by recasting the CLT as a cumulant recursion relation and making use of an established framework to propagate cumulants through MLPs. We also empirically validate an extension of this framework from MLPs to GNNs, elucidating the internal information processing performed by these more complex models. These findings offer new insight into the learning dynamics of symmetric networks and their limitations in modelling structured physical transformations.
title Symmetry and Generalisation in Neural Approximations of Renormalisation Transformations
topic Machine Learning
Statistical Mechanics
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.16591