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Main Authors: Flek, Lucie, Janik, Oliver, Jung, Philipp Alexander, Karimi, Akbar, Saala, Timo, Schmidt, Alexander, Schott, Matthias, Soldin, Philipp, Thiesmeyer, Matthias, Wiebusch, Christopher, Willemsen, Ulrich
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.01352
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author Flek, Lucie
Janik, Oliver
Jung, Philipp Alexander
Karimi, Akbar
Saala, Timo
Schmidt, Alexander
Schott, Matthias
Soldin, Philipp
Thiesmeyer, Matthias
Wiebusch, Christopher
Willemsen, Ulrich
author_facet Flek, Lucie
Janik, Oliver
Jung, Philipp Alexander
Karimi, Akbar
Saala, Timo
Schmidt, Alexander
Schott, Matthias
Soldin, Philipp
Thiesmeyer, Matthias
Wiebusch, Christopher
Willemsen, Ulrich
contents In this paper, we present a new algorithm, MiniFool, that implements physics-inspired adversarial attacks for testing neural network-based classification tasks in particle and astroparticle physics. While we initially developed the algorithm for the search for astrophysical tau neutrinos with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, we apply it to further data from other science domains, thus demonstrating its general applicability. Here, we apply the algorithm to the well-known MNIST data set and furthermore, to Open Data data from the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The algorithm is based on minimizing a cost function that combines a $χ^2$ based test-statistic with the deviation from the desired target score. The test statistic quantifies the probability of the perturbations applied to the data based on the experimental uncertainties. For our studied use cases, we find that the likelihood of a flipped classification differs for both the initially correctly and incorrectly classified events. When testing changes of the classifications as a function of an attack parameter that scales the experimental uncertainties, the robustness of the network decision can be quantified. Furthermore, this allows testing the robustness of the classification of unlabeled experimental data.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_01352
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MiniFool -- Physics-Constraint-Aware Minimizer-Based Adversarial Attacks in Deep Neural Networks
Flek, Lucie
Janik, Oliver
Jung, Philipp Alexander
Karimi, Akbar
Saala, Timo
Schmidt, Alexander
Schott, Matthias
Soldin, Philipp
Thiesmeyer, Matthias
Wiebusch, Christopher
Willemsen, Ulrich
Machine Learning
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Experiment
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
J.2; I.2.6
In this paper, we present a new algorithm, MiniFool, that implements physics-inspired adversarial attacks for testing neural network-based classification tasks in particle and astroparticle physics. While we initially developed the algorithm for the search for astrophysical tau neutrinos with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, we apply it to further data from other science domains, thus demonstrating its general applicability. Here, we apply the algorithm to the well-known MNIST data set and furthermore, to Open Data data from the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The algorithm is based on minimizing a cost function that combines a $χ^2$ based test-statistic with the deviation from the desired target score. The test statistic quantifies the probability of the perturbations applied to the data based on the experimental uncertainties. For our studied use cases, we find that the likelihood of a flipped classification differs for both the initially correctly and incorrectly classified events. When testing changes of the classifications as a function of an attack parameter that scales the experimental uncertainties, the robustness of the network decision can be quantified. Furthermore, this allows testing the robustness of the classification of unlabeled experimental data.
title MiniFool -- Physics-Constraint-Aware Minimizer-Based Adversarial Attacks in Deep Neural Networks
topic Machine Learning
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Experiment
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
J.2; I.2.6
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.01352