Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Distributed-Delay Dynamics via the Linear Chain Trick

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Alanazi, Mohammed, Bani-Yaghoub, Majid
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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_version_ 1866914265631293440
author Alanazi, Mohammed
Bani-Yaghoub, Majid
author_facet Alanazi, Mohammed
Bani-Yaghoub, Majid
contents The Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Dynamics (SINDy) framework has been frequently used to discover parsimonious differential equations governing natural and physical systems. This includes recent extensions to SINDy that enable the recovery of discrete delay differential equations, where delay terms are represented explicitly in the candidate library. However, such formulations cannot capture the distributed delays that naturally arise in biological, physical, and engineering systems. In the present work, we extend SINDy to identify distributed-delay differential equations by incorporating the Linear Chain Trick (LCT), which provides a finite-dimensional ordinary differential equation representing the distributed memory effects. Hence, SINDy can operate in an augmented state space using conventional sparse regression while preserving a clear interpretation of delayed influences via the chain trick. From time-series data, the proposed method jointly infers the governing equations, the mean delay, and the dispersion of the underlying delay distribution. We numerically verify the method on several models with distributed delay, including the logistic growth model and a Hes1--mRNA gene regulatory network model. We show that the proposed method accurately reconstructs distributed delay dynamics, remains robust under noise and sparse sampling, and provides a transparent, data-driven approach for discovering nonlinear systems with distributed-delay.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_13536
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Distributed-Delay Dynamics via the Linear Chain Trick
Alanazi, Mohammed
Bani-Yaghoub, Majid
Numerical Analysis
34K05, 65L03, 65Q20, 34K99
The Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Dynamics (SINDy) framework has been frequently used to discover parsimonious differential equations governing natural and physical systems. This includes recent extensions to SINDy that enable the recovery of discrete delay differential equations, where delay terms are represented explicitly in the candidate library. However, such formulations cannot capture the distributed delays that naturally arise in biological, physical, and engineering systems. In the present work, we extend SINDy to identify distributed-delay differential equations by incorporating the Linear Chain Trick (LCT), which provides a finite-dimensional ordinary differential equation representing the distributed memory effects. Hence, SINDy can operate in an augmented state space using conventional sparse regression while preserving a clear interpretation of delayed influences via the chain trick. From time-series data, the proposed method jointly infers the governing equations, the mean delay, and the dispersion of the underlying delay distribution. We numerically verify the method on several models with distributed delay, including the logistic growth model and a Hes1--mRNA gene regulatory network model. We show that the proposed method accurately reconstructs distributed delay dynamics, remains robust under noise and sparse sampling, and provides a transparent, data-driven approach for discovering nonlinear systems with distributed-delay.
title Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Distributed-Delay Dynamics via the Linear Chain Trick
topic Numerical Analysis
34K05, 65L03, 65Q20, 34K99
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.13536