DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Optimization and supervised machine learning methods for fitting numerical physics models without derivatives

Journal Article · · Journal of Physics. G, Nuclear and Particle Physics

Here, we address the calibration of a computationally expensive nuclear physics model for which derivative information with respect to the fit parameters is not readily available. Of particular interest is the performance of optimization-based training algorithms when dozens, rather than millions or more, of training data are available and when the expense of the model places limitations on the number of concurrent model evaluations that can be performed. As a case study, we consider the Fayans energy density functional model, which has characteristics similar to many model fitting and calibration problems in nuclear physics. We analyze hyperparameter tuning considerations and variability associated with stochastic optimization algorithms and illustrate considerations for tuning in different computational settings.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357; SC0013365; SC0018083
OSTI ID:
1765468
Journal Information:
Journal of Physics. G, Nuclear and Particle Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Physics. G, Nuclear and Particle Physics Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 48; ISSN 0954-3899
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (45)

Derivative-Free and Blackbox Optimization book January 2017
The Skyrme—Hartree—Fock Model of the Nuclear Ground State book January 1991
Random Gradient-Free Minimization of Convex Functions journal November 2015
The Open Images Dataset V4: Unified Image Classification, Object Detection, and Visual Relationship Detection at Scale journal March 2020
Do you trust derivatives or differences? journal September 2014
Derivative-free optimization methods journal May 2019
Proton superfluidity and charge radii in proton-rich calcium isotopes journal February 2019
Measurement and microscopic description of odd–even staggering of charge radii of exotic copper isotopes journal April 2020
The importance of better models in stochastic optimization journal October 2019
Error estimates of theoretical models: a guide journal May 2014
Statistical uncertainties of a chiral interaction at next-to-next-to leading order journal February 2015
A Bayesian approach for parameter estimation and prediction using a computationally intensive model journal February 2015
Derivative-free optimization for parameter estimation in computational nuclear physics journal February 2015
Bayesian optimization in ab initio nuclear physics journal July 2019
Energy Density Functional Methods for Atomic Nuclei book January 2019
A Simplex Method for Function Minimization journal January 1965
Uncertainty Quantification for Nuclear Density Functional Theory and Information Content of New Measurements journal March 2015
Laser Spectroscopy of Neutron-Rich Tin Isotopes: A Discontinuity in Charge Radii across the N = 82 Shell Closure journal May 2019
Beyond the charge radius: The information content of the fourth radial moment journal February 2020
Nuclear energy density optimization journal August 2010
Nuclear energy density optimization: Large deformations journal February 2012
Spurious finite-size instabilities in nuclear energy density functionals journal December 2013
Nuclear energy density optimization: Shell structure journal May 2014
Spurious finite-size instabilities in nuclear energy density functionals: Spin channel journal August 2015
Local chiral potentials with Δ -intermediate states and the structure of light nuclei journal November 2016
Toward a global description of nuclear charge radii: Exploring the Fayans energy density functional journal June 2017
Optimized Chiral Nucleon-Nucleon Interaction at Next-to-Next-to-Leading Order journal May 2013
From Calcium to Cadmium: Testing the Pairing Functional through Charge Radii Measurements of Cd 100 − 130 journal September 2018
Self-organized criticality and the Barkhausen effect journal September 1991
Self-consistent mean-field models for nuclear structure journal January 2003
Optimal Rates for Zero-Order Convex Optimization: The Power of Two Function Evaluations journal May 2015
Towards a universal nuclear density functional journal August 1998
Stochastic online optimization. Single-point and multi-point non-linear multi-armed bandits. Convex and strongly-convex case journal February 2017
Evaluating Derivatives book January 2008
Introduction to Derivative-Free Optimization book January 2009
Chapter 40: POUNDERS in TAO: Solving Derivative-Free Nonlinear Least-Squares Problems with POUNDERS book April 2017
Estimating Computational Noise journal January 2011
Stochastic First- and Zeroth-Order Methods for Nonconvex Stochastic Programming journal January 2013
Optimization Methods for Large-Scale Machine Learning journal January 2018
Budget-Dependent Convergence Rate of Stochastic Approximation journal February 1998
Convergence Properties of the Nelder--Mead Simplex Method in Low Dimensions journal January 1998
Estimating Derivatives of Noisy Simulations journal April 2012
Stochastic Estimation of the Maximum of a Regression Function journal September 1952
A Stochastic Approximation Method journal September 1951
Simulation-Based Optimization with Stochastic Approximation Using Common Random Numbers journal November 1999