An Efficient High-Degree, High-Order Equivariant Graph Neural Network for Direct Crystal Structure Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yang, Ziduo, Zhuo, Wei, Xie, Huiqiang, Liu, Xiaoqing, Shen, Lei
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911543396925440
author Yang, Ziduo
Zhuo, Wei
Xie, Huiqiang
Liu, Xiaoqing
Shen, Lei
author_facet Yang, Ziduo
Zhuo, Wei
Xie, Huiqiang
Liu, Xiaoqing
Shen, Lei
contents Crystal structure optimization is fundamental to materials modeling but remains computationally expensive when performed with density-functional theory (DFT). Machine-learning (ML) approaches offer substantial acceleration, yet existing methods face three key limitations: (i) most models operate solely on atoms and treat lattice vectors implicitly, despite their central role in structural optimization; (ii) they lack efficient mechanisms to capture high-degree angular information and higher-order geometric correlations simultaneously, which are essential for distinguishing subtle structural differences; and (iii) many pipelines are multi-stage or iterative rather than truly end-to-end, making them prone to error accumulation and limiting scalability. Here we present E$^{3}$Relax-H$^{2}$, an end-to-end high-degree, high-order equivariant graph neural network that maps an initial crystal directly to its relaxed structure. The key idea is to promote both atoms and lattice vectors to graph nodes, enabling a unified and symmetry-consistent representation of structural degrees of freedom. Building on this formulation, E$^{3}$Relax-H$^{2}$ introduces two message-passing mechanisms: (i) a high-degree, high-order message-passing module that efficiently captures high-degree angular representations and high-order many-body correlations; and (ii) a lattice-atom message-passing module that explicitly models the bidirectional coupling between lattice deformation and atomic displacement. In addition, we propose a differentiable periodicity-aware Cartesian displacement loss tailored for one-shot structure prediction under periodic boundary conditions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_23941
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An Efficient High-Degree, High-Order Equivariant Graph Neural Network for Direct Crystal Structure Optimization
Yang, Ziduo
Zhuo, Wei
Xie, Huiqiang
Liu, Xiaoqing
Shen, Lei
Materials Science
Crystal structure optimization is fundamental to materials modeling but remains computationally expensive when performed with density-functional theory (DFT). Machine-learning (ML) approaches offer substantial acceleration, yet existing methods face three key limitations: (i) most models operate solely on atoms and treat lattice vectors implicitly, despite their central role in structural optimization; (ii) they lack efficient mechanisms to capture high-degree angular information and higher-order geometric correlations simultaneously, which are essential for distinguishing subtle structural differences; and (iii) many pipelines are multi-stage or iterative rather than truly end-to-end, making them prone to error accumulation and limiting scalability. Here we present E$^{3}$Relax-H$^{2}$, an end-to-end high-degree, high-order equivariant graph neural network that maps an initial crystal directly to its relaxed structure. The key idea is to promote both atoms and lattice vectors to graph nodes, enabling a unified and symmetry-consistent representation of structural degrees of freedom. Building on this formulation, E$^{3}$Relax-H$^{2}$ introduces two message-passing mechanisms: (i) a high-degree, high-order message-passing module that efficiently captures high-degree angular representations and high-order many-body correlations; and (ii) a lattice-atom message-passing module that explicitly models the bidirectional coupling between lattice deformation and atomic displacement. In addition, we propose a differentiable periodicity-aware Cartesian displacement loss tailored for one-shot structure prediction under periodic boundary conditions.
title An Efficient High-Degree, High-Order Equivariant Graph Neural Network for Direct Crystal Structure Optimization
topic Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.23941