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Main Authors: Mukund, Nikhil, Luo, Yifang, Zhang, Fan, Barsotti, Lisa, Katsavounidis, Erik
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.03436
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author Mukund, Nikhil
Luo, Yifang
Zhang, Fan
Barsotti, Lisa
Katsavounidis, Erik
author_facet Mukund, Nikhil
Luo, Yifang
Zhang, Fan
Barsotti, Lisa
Katsavounidis, Erik
contents We present MARVEL (https://ligogpt.mit.edu/marvel), a locally deployable, open-source framework for domain-aware question answering and assisted scientific research. It is designed to address the increasing demands of a digital assistant for scientific groups that can read highly technical data, cite precisely, and operate within authenticated networks. MARVEL combines a fast path for straightforward queries with a more deliberate DeepSearch mode that integrates retrieval-augmented generation and Monte Carlo Tree Search. It explores complementary subqueries, allocates more compute to promising branches, and maintains a global evidence ledger that preserves sources during drafting. We applied this framework in the context of gravitational-wave research related to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory. Answers are grounded in a curated semantic index of research literature, doctoral theses, LIGO documents, and long-running detector electronic logbooks, with targeted web searches when appropriate. Because direct benchmarking against commercial LLMs cannot be performed on private data, we evaluated MARVEL on two publicly available surrogate datasets that capture comparable semantic and technical characteristics. On these benchmarks, MARVEL matches a GPT-4o mini baseline on literature-centric queries and substantially outperforms it on detector-operations content, where domain retrieval and guided reasoning are decisive. By making the complete framework and evaluation datasets openly available, we aim to provide a reproducible foundation for developing domain-specific scientific assistants.
format Preprint
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institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MARVEL: A Multi Agent-based Research Validator and Enabler using Large Language Models
Mukund, Nikhil
Luo, Yifang
Zhang, Fan
Barsotti, Lisa
Katsavounidis, Erik
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Artificial Intelligence
We present MARVEL (https://ligogpt.mit.edu/marvel), a locally deployable, open-source framework for domain-aware question answering and assisted scientific research. It is designed to address the increasing demands of a digital assistant for scientific groups that can read highly technical data, cite precisely, and operate within authenticated networks. MARVEL combines a fast path for straightforward queries with a more deliberate DeepSearch mode that integrates retrieval-augmented generation and Monte Carlo Tree Search. It explores complementary subqueries, allocates more compute to promising branches, and maintains a global evidence ledger that preserves sources during drafting. We applied this framework in the context of gravitational-wave research related to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory. Answers are grounded in a curated semantic index of research literature, doctoral theses, LIGO documents, and long-running detector electronic logbooks, with targeted web searches when appropriate. Because direct benchmarking against commercial LLMs cannot be performed on private data, we evaluated MARVEL on two publicly available surrogate datasets that capture comparable semantic and technical characteristics. On these benchmarks, MARVEL matches a GPT-4o mini baseline on literature-centric queries and substantially outperforms it on detector-operations content, where domain retrieval and guided reasoning are decisive. By making the complete framework and evaluation datasets openly available, we aim to provide a reproducible foundation for developing domain-specific scientific assistants.
title MARVEL: A Multi Agent-based Research Validator and Enabler using Large Language Models
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.03436