Peer Revenue Publish or profit

Papers

Fresh from arXiv, typeset properly. Highlighted words trade on the market.

Physics Physics Computational Physics

physics.comp-ph Watch Computational Physics (sign in to use)

Wednesday 7 October

Computational Physics

Self-Shielded Multigroup Microscopic Cross Section Generation Using Targeted Artificial Neural Networks

Multigroup neutron transport models are used widely in simulation codes due to their memory and compute efficiency compared to continuous energy methods. However, multigroup codes rely on nuclear data prepared using approximate methods that require significant manual effort and expertise to account for self-shielding effects. In addition, multigroup nuclear data libraries prepared in this way can be limited in their applicability for modeling diverse reactors and operating conditions. Here we show that trained artificial neural networks can predict self-shielded microscopic cross sections accurately in pincell simulations containing uranium dioxide fuel with a fixed geometry and temperature. The model's predictive accuracy remains high across fuel enrichment and burnup ranges encountered in light water reactors. Critically, the neural networks' predictions require only the atomic concentration of the fuel's constituent nuclides as inputs. The networks are trained using 8,704 samples of training and validation data generated using continuous energy OpenMC pincell simulations. The trained neural networks predict self-shielded total, fission, absorption, elastic, and total scattering cross sections for combinations of 90 nuclides in the CASMO-8 energy group structure. The neural networks' predictions of self-shielded cross sections are validated by comparison with 1,500 samples of reference cross sections unseen during training and tallied using OpenMC simulations. The predicted and ground truth cross sections in the test data set agree to within 0.119% on average. When the predicted cross sections are used in a multigroup eigenvalue run, they achieve a mean absolute error in keff of 200 pcm.
Read the full abstract

All authors Joshua Nichols, Andrew Osborne, Ben Whewell, Nathan Gibson

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from physics.chem-ph

LLM-Assisted Generation of Transparent, Open-Source Multiphysics Models of Electrochemical Devices

Multiphysics continuum models are powerful tools for studying electrochemical devices, enabling in silico reactor design and resolution of local pH, potential, and concentration fields that govern device performance but are difficult to measure experimentally. However, constructing such models requires substantial numerical expertise or reliance on proprietary software. Here, we show that frontier large language model agents can remove this implementation burden while keeping the underlying physics under researcher control. Using one-dimensional electrochemical CO2 reduction to CO in a porous gas diffusion electrode as a test case, we develop a machine-readable, human-specified modeling harness containing governing equations, parameters, numerical methods, logical build stages, and human-verifiable checkpoints. From this specification, the agent reproducibly constructs complete multiphysics models in open-source Julia. Independently built models, including fully autonomous agent-built models, agree with an equivalent COMSOL implementation to within 0.7% of the peak CO partial current density, and with one another to within 0.04%. Systematically planted errors demonstrate the importance of explicit specifications for reproducibility and reveal the agent's capabilities and limitations in debugging model physics. This framework establishes a more transparent approach to multiphysics modeling in which physical descriptions and governing equations, rather than specialized code, become the primary inputs for computational model development.
Read the full abstract

All authors Sebastian Castro, Maya F. Schuchert, Spencer A. McCluskey, Eric W. Lees, Justin C. Bui

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from physics.acc-ph

AloHEP Software: A luminosity optimizer for High Energy Physics colliders

The luminosity quoted for proposed particle colliders is usually derived from the analytic geometric formula, which assumes head-on collisions of identical, rigid Gaussian bunches. For the new generation of asymmetric machines—in particular lepton–hadron colliders such as the EIC, LHeC and FCC-eh—this assumption can misestimate the luminosity, because it ignores a few coupled effects that act in the interaction region such as hourglass effect, crossing angle, and mutual electromagnetic (beam–beam) deformation of the colliding bunches. We present AloHEP (A luminosity optimizer for High Energy Physics), an open-source, cross-platform Java application that simulates the interaction region of both symmetric and asymmetric colliders. AloHEP represents each bunch by an ensemble of macroparticles deposited on the grid with a cloud-in-cell scheme, and slices the crossing longitudinally. On each transverse slice it solves the two-dimensional electrostatic problem by a direct Green's-function convolution, then obtains the beam–beam forces by finite differencing and continuous bicubic interpolation. The hourglass effect, finite crossing angle and beam–beam pinch/disruption can be enabled independently, and the two colliding beams may consist of entirely different species (leptons, protons, heavy ions). A JSON-backed parameter database and an interactive graphical interface make AloHEP a flexible tool for the rapid prototyping of realistic luminosity estimates. We verify that the code reproduces the analytic geometric luminosity in the appropriate limit and present scaling, grid-convergence and asymmetric-collider benchmarks.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.mtrl-sci

Origins of Universal Machine Learning Force-Field Errors in Multicomponent Materials

Universal machine learning force-field generalization to multicomponent environments generated by compositional design remains insufficiently assessed. We construct a benchmark of 7,599 multicomponent configurations inspired by high-entropy design, elemental substitution and anion mixing. Eleven pretrained models are evaluated against density functional theory for energies, forces and stresses, with assessment extended to elastic, vibrational and adsorption-related properties. Force errors are analysed through training-reference coverage, local geometric heterogeneity, distance directionality and elemental response. Distances to training-reference environments reveal a qualitative association between coverage differences and increasing errors, while substantial variation remains at similar distances. Higher-error groups show greater local geometric heterogeneity, although OMat24 provides broad coverage of these environments. Relative to training-reference pair medians, errors remain low near the median, rise steeply on the compression side and increase more weakly on the extension side. After matching element pairs and absolute distance deviations, compression-side force errors are 1.81-1.95 times extension-side errors. Model-predicted pairwise interaction curves show greater curvature under compression. Fitting difficulty in independent elemental systems correlates with electronic band-energy responses to atomic displacements and Fermi-level shifts, and a similar pattern is observed in multicomponent systems. In parameter-matched comparisons, spherical-harmonic representations with maximum degrees of 2 and 4 lower test force errors for 38 and 40 of 43 elements, respectively, while differences in elemental difficulty remain. These findings inform force-field selection for experimental compositional design and identify targets for training-data sampling and model representations.
Read the full abstract

All authors Hongwei Du, Dingyang Lv, Baole Wei, Yu Ren, Feng Yu, Xin He, Bonan Zhu, Jiahui Liu, Yongda Huang, Yongheng Li, Jianjun Liu, Siqi Shi, Hong Wang, Ziheng Lu

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.mtrl-sci

Electronic Properties of Ladder-Type Phenylenes Studied by Thermally-Assisted-Occupation Density Functional Theory

Accurate prediction of the electronic properties of extended $\pi$-conjugated systems with radical character remains a major theoretical challenge. To overcome this challenge, thermally-assisted-occupation density functional theory (TAO-DFT) has been developed in recent years. In this study, we employ TAO-DFT to systematically explore the electronic properties of ladder-type phenylenes ($n$-LPs), containing $n$ linearly fused four-membered carbon rings. Our calculations reveal that all investigated $n$-LPs (with $n$ = 1 ~ 40) possess singlet ground states. With increasing $n$-LP length, we observe a transition from the nonradical character of shorter $n$-LPs to the polyradical character of longer $n$-LPs. Notably, we identify a distinct damped periodic oscillation in the radical character of $n$-LPs, featuring highly correlated hotspots at specific lengths ($n = 3k - 1$, where $k$ are positive integers). The real-space representation of active orbitals confirms this global electronic behavior is governed by the intrinsic structural periodicity and completely delocalized nature of the active orbitals along the central ladder framework. These findings provide fundamental insights into the size-dependent electronic properties of $n$-LPs, guiding their rational design for future nanomaterial applications.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from hep-lat

Performance Portable $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ Lattice Gauge Theory Simulation with Kokkos

The increasing diversity of high performance computing systems makes separate, architecture specific implementations of lattice gauge theory algorithms costly to maintain. We present kwqft, a performance portable Kokkos implementation of Wilson pure gauge Monte Carlo simulation for $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ Yang-Mills theory in an arbitrary number of space-time dimensions. The gauge group order $N$ and the dimension $D$ are compile time parameters. A single source targets the Serial, OpenMP, CUDA, HIP, and SYCL execution spaces, with MPI halo exchange overlapped with interior updates. The implementation reproduces the exact two-dimensional plaquette and published three and four dimensional values for gauge groups up to $\mathrm{SU}(17)$. On an NVIDIA A100 the Kokkos CUDA backend is competitive with a native CUDA code, SIMD acceleration improves the OpenMP path on Armv9 processors, and a large scale speedup is demonstrated for an $\mathrm{SU}(4)$ lattice on the LineShine supercomputer, currently ranked first on the TOP500 list.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from physics.flu-dyn

Machine-learning-assisted phase-amplitude reduction for fast synchronization of airfoil wakes with constrained fluctuations

This study considers rapidly modifying the wake shedding frequency of the flow around an airfoil using sparse sensor information, subject to constraints on the lift coefficient fluctuations. This is achieved by combining phase-amplitude reduction with nonlinear machine-learning-based sparse sensor reconstruction. We derive time-varying phase and amplitude sensitivity fields that identify the optimal spatial locations and timing for actuation from merely three sensors. Through the sensitivity fields, we analytically obtain the optimal waveform for fast synchronization of wake shedding frequency while minimizing amplitude deviation of aerodynamic responses. The proposed approach is evaluated using flows over various NACA airfoils at several post-stall angles of attack, all of which exhibit unsteady periodic vortex shedding. With the identified optimal forcing, the wake frequency is altered much faster than with a standard sinusoidal actuation. Furthermore, the amplitude-penalized forcing achieves $20\%$ suppression of the lift coefficient fluctuation compared to the optimal forcing without amplitude penalty. The current amplitude-penalized technique may offer an efficient path for fast flow modification without causing detrimental fluctuations in periodic aerodynamic and aeroelastic systems with fluid-structure interactions.
Read the full abstract

All authors Daiki Beppu, Vedasri Godavarthi, Koichiro Yawata, Hiroya Nakao, Kai Fukami

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.stat-mech

Heat Transport of the $\beta$-Fermi–Pasta–Ulam–Tsingou chain in the long-wave limit

Resolving the anomalous conductivity exponent of the symmetric $\beta$-Fermi–Pasta–Ulam–Tsingou chain by molecular dynamics can require very large systems because of long finite-size crossovers and thermal-contact resistance. Motivated by this computational challenge, we derive a long-wavelength continuum description and investigate whether the kinetic-theory scaling $\kappa\propto L^{2/5}$ becomes accessible with a moderate number of numerical degrees of freedom. The nonlinear elastic field retains the cubic stress of the microscopic interaction and exchanges heat with Langevin reservoirs. A flux-conservative spatial discretization constructs the force and energy current from the same stress, providing a consistent interior transport estimator. For $L>8$, corresponding to approximately $10^3$ mesh nodes and above at the reference resolution, the fitted exponent is $0.399\pm0.004$. Mesh refinement supports the stability of this exponent between the two finer resolutions, although the conductivity amplitude remains resolution-dependent. The main result is thus an accessible finite-size regime near $2/5$, rather than convergence of the absolute conductivity as the mesh spacing vanishes. This formulation provides a practical route to studying anomalous transport in anharmonic systems and a conservative continuum framework for investigating energy flow in nonlinear elastic media.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from physics.atom-ph

Full molecular dynamics simulations of a single trapped ion in a neutral bath

We present full molecular dynamics simulations that explicitly incorporate the simultaneous interactions between a trapped ion and a bath of neutral atoms. In contrast to conventional molecular dynamics treatments, this framework enables a systematic assessment of how the atomic-gas density influences both the ion's cooling dynamics and its steady-state mean kinetic energy. Our results show that the gas density measurably modifies the ion's average kinetic energy, albeit only weakly, in qualitative disagreement with predictions obtained from standard molecular dynamics simulations. In addition, the calculations indicate that short-range features of the atom-ion interaction potential become increasingly consequential as the atomic density increases. Simulations including many atoms yield higher mean kinetic energies than standard molecular dynamics, a trend we attribute to the transient formation of molecular-ion complexes. Finally, we observe that for a fixed ion, lighter atomic baths lead to a smaller final ion average kinetic energy than heavier atomic baths.
Read the full abstract

Tuesday 6 October

Computational Physics

Physics-Guided Multi-Fidelity Surrogate Modeling for Natural Supercavity Geometry of an Axisymmetric Conical Cavitator

Natural supercavitation behind conical cavitators generates a vapor-filled envelope that, when sustained over the full body of a high-speed underwater vehicles, reduces hydrodynamic skin-friction drag and enables performance levels unattainable in fully wetted flow. Accurate prediction of maximum cavity length and maximum cavity radius and local cavity profile as functions of cavitation number and cone half-angle is essential for both the static design and the real-time shape management of super-cavitating torpedo cavitators. Classical analytical models provide computationally inexpensive predictions but exhibit systematic disagreements in the practically important regime of moderate cavitation number and large angle, where slender-body assumptions begin to break down. Existing data-driven machine learning approaches offer higher accuracy but are constrained by the prohibitive cost of multiphase computational fluid dynamics (CFD) sweeps over the full design space. This study proposes a physics-guided multi-fidelity surrogate framework based on Extended Hierarchical Kriging (PG-EHK) that addresses this challenge by fusing the multiple competing analytical cavity formulas as non-level low-fidelity (LF) trend functions corrected by a sparse set of high-fidelity (HF) CFD data. It simultaneously incorporates the analytical models regardless of their local fidelity ordering, using Bayesian-estimated scaling factors to construct the trend function as physical baseline. The resulting surrogate maps operational condition inputs to cavity geometry responses using fewer than 20 high-fidelity CFD evaluations. Cross-validation on five independent hold-out CFD cases demonstrates that the proposed PG-EHK surrogate achieves 61% reduction in prediction error compared to the best-performing individual analytical approach.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics

acousticHelmholtzFoam: an MPI-parallel unstructured finite-volume solver for frequency-domain acoustics in heterogeneous two-phase media with perfectly matched layers

acousticHelmholtzFoam is an OpenFOAM application that computes time-harmonic acoustic pressure fields in heterogeneous gas-liquid media on unstructured polyhedral meshes. The complex pressure is stored as real and imaginary volume fields, the material coefficients are constructed from a volume-of-fluid phase fraction with geometric face-fraction averaging, and open boundaries are truncated by Cartesian perfectly matched layers (PMLs) whose damping tensor is generated by the companion utility setPMLFields. The two coupled real-valued equations are discretized with the cell-centred finite-volume operators of OpenFOAM and assembled explicitly, including processor couplings and boundary contributions, into a distributed PETSc matrix that is solved by default with the MUMPS sparse direct solver. The solver writes pressure amplitude, complex velocity, acoustic radiation pressure and time-averaged momentum flux for acoustic-force evaluation. This paper documents the implemented equations, the case interface, the assembly and solution algorithm, the build procedure and the test infrastructure. A layered gas-liquid-PML case with an analytical solution serves as an end-to-end regression: on 8000 cells the whole-domain relative complex-pressure error is $1.197\times10^{-3}$, and serial and MPI solutions on up to eight ranks agree to within $10^{-12}$ in relative $L_2$ norm. A single-axis acoustic-levitator height sweep with constant-volume spheroidal drops demonstrates the two-phase material input and the force output, and strong- and problem-size-scaling measurements characterize the direct-solver workflow. The numerical formulation and its verification are presented in a companion paper (arXiv:2610.01593).
Read the full abstract

All authors Chuanchao Xu, Jun Liu, Dieter Bothe, Tomislav Maric

Computational Physics

Reliable Uncertainty Estimation for Machine-Learned Multigroup Cross Sections Without Retraining

Uncertainty quantification in machine learning models is essential for nuclear energy applications. While machine learning models can make both uncertainty and point predictions, these models are often significantly more difficult to train jointly than models that make point predictions alone. Split conformal prediction is a family of methods for computing distribution-free prediction intervals by calculating nonconformity scores corresponding to a target quantile in a calibration dataset. Although conformal prediction only guarantees marginal coverage, normalizing nonconformity scores enables predictive interval widths to be calculated on a per-sample basis, providing an approximation to conditional coverage. In this work, we connect uncertainty predicting neural networks to pre-trained networks that estimate shielding factors in multigroup neutron cross sections. We train the uncertainty models on the same OpenMC data used by the pre-trained models, whose weights and biases remain fixed. The outputs of the uncertainty models are the standard deviations of the residual, separated into contributions from the model and tally uncertainty. Their corresponding variances are combined in quadrature to provide a normalizing factor for conformal prediction, providing interval widths that are adaptive on a per-sample basis. Baselines for comparison are established using Mondrian conformal prediction, and by using the ground truth OpenMC uncertainties as normalizers in the conformal framework. We use predicted uncertainty interval widths and the severity of predictions that overshoot the interval widths as bases for comparing our normalizer with the baselines. We find that our method dramatically reduces both interval widths and the degree to which predictions fall outside these widths.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from nlin.SI

Nonlinear Spectral Computing

Many machine learning algorithms rely on the Fourier transform, which is also the inner core of many analog computing devices and, specifically, of optical computing. The square of the modulus of the Fourier spectrum naturally maps onto pairwise interactions, as in the renowned Ising model, making it applicable to combinatorial optimization. Here we show how the nonlinear Fourier transform, related to integrable nonlinear partial differential equations, significantly widens the computational capability and also enables a wide variety of computing gates. We study specifically the case of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation; we introduce an input composed by “tokens”, i.e., batches of information encoded in a multi-step potential, and we show how the nonlinear spectral computing arising in the wave propagation not only generalizes combinatorial optimization to higher order problems, but also realizes boolean gates. In the weakly nonlinear regime, nonlinearity generates higher-order interactions as perturbative corrections to the pairwise terms. In the solitonic regime, the discrete nonlinear spectrum performs digital computation through soliton generation. By using four input tokens, we demonstrate the programmability of all 256 Boolean functions of three variables, including 3-SAT instances. Our results show that integrable nonlinear propagation provides an unprecedented single physical platform for higher-order and logical computation, opening the way to a rich variety of new algorithms for analog computing, machine learning, and classical and quantum information processing.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics

Convergence of Roberts flow dynamos in Eulerian and Lagrangian codes

Standard benchmark tests for numerical magnetohydrodynamics codes focus on one- and two-dimensional problems that ignore the possibility of dynamos, i.e., an exponential instability converting kinetic energy into magnetic energy. They also tend to ignore magnetic helicity conservation that can have dramatic effects in periodic domains. The existence of magnetic diffusion is crucial for dynamos, as was exemplified by the impossibility of finding dynamo solutions when using Euler potentials, which is a perfectly valid approach in the absence of magnetic diffusion. The Roberts flows~I, II, III, and IV are two-dimensional flows that support three-dimensional dynamos, all of which are also large-scale dynamos in the sense that their planar averages are of significant strengths, even though flow~II is pointwise non-helical. Here we demonstrate the numerical convergence properties of solutions obtained using discretisation schemes of second, sixth, and tenth order in the mesh width in the Pencil Code, compare the results with the SPH-based SWIFT code, and present a list of averaged quantities that facilitate their use in characterising the solutions as benchmarks. In addition, we present a procedure to obtain two-dimensional time-independent magnetic field visualisation for all Roberts flows, and perform per-pixel comparison between the Pencil and SWIFT codes. The rich combination of features makes Roberts flows an excellent dynamo benchmark for the direct numerical simulations of magnetohydrodynamics equations.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from astro-ph.GA

Early onset of the hot circumgalactic medium around Milky Way galaxies

Hot coronae are key regulators in Milky Way (MW)-type galaxy formation and are thought to emerge once a galaxy's dark matter halo crosses a critical mass threshold, $M_{\mathrm{vir}}\sim10^{12} {\mathrm{M}}_\odot$, so that accretion shocks can heat infalling gas to virial temperatures, $T_{\mathrm{vir}}$. Here we investigate the roles of stellar feedback and accretion shocks in establishing the circumgalactic medium (CGM) around MW-mass galaxies using the VINTERGATAN cosmological simulation suite. We find that stellar feedback drives the early formation of a hot CGM, with $T_{\mathrm{CGM}}\sim T_{\mathrm{vir}}$. By contrast, in feedback-free simulations, accretion shocks alone do not produce a CGM with comparably high average temperatures at early epochs ($z>2$), independent of gas metallicity. We show that CGM virialisation (defined when halo-gas cooling time exceeds the free-fall time) begins with the emergence of a hot corona ($T>10^5$ K) that can appear as early as $z\approx3$ at virial radius, $R_{\mathrm{vir}}$, when feedback is included. This is much earlier than predicted by accretion-shock theory or feedback-free models ($z\lesssim1$). While accretion shocks alone produce an inside-out virialisation pattern, feedback can alter this behaviour, driving a rapid transition ($\lesssim0.5$ Gyr) that is either outside-in or nearly simultaneous throughout the halo. Finally, these early-forming coronae are largely stable from formation through to the present day, but can appear to evolve simply because the definition of $R_{\mathrm{vir}}$ grows with time. This 'CGM pseudo-evolution' is analogous to the pseudo-evolution of dark matter haloes and should be taken into account when interpreting the evolution of hot coronae.
Read the full abstract

All authors Víctor Rufo-Pastor, Oscar Agertz, Santi Roca-Fábrega, Martin P. Rey, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Justin I. Read, Thor Tepper-García, Corentin Cadiou, Anatole Storck

Computational Physics

Neural-Operator-Predicted Time-Dependent Reduced Subspaces for Projection-Based Simulation of Nonlinear PDEs

Accurate numerical simulation of nonlinear partial differential equation initial value problems typically requires high-dimensional full-order discretizations at substantial computational cost. While purely data-driven surrogates can speed up prediction, these "black box" approximations do not necessarily satisfy the governing equations during inference. In this paper we present a hybrid framework, which combines neural operators with projection-based reduced-order modeling for nonlinear PDE simulation. The key idea is to train a neural operator to map the initial condition to a time-dependent reduced subspace, and then evolve low-dimensional reduced coordinates by solving the governing dynamical equations projected on this learned moving trial subspace. In this way, the network predicts an adaptive reduced representation rather than the full trajectory directly, while the online solver preserves a physics-based reduced evolution. We test this method on two representative nonlinear PDEs: the viscous Burgers' equation and the Fisher–KPP reaction–diffusion equation. In both cases, the proposed approach achieves successful reduced-order simulation with substantial wall-clock speedup relative to the corresponding full-order solver while maintaining relative errors on the order of \(10^{-2}\) to \(10^{-1}\) across the tested resolutions. These results demonstrate that a low-dimensional learned time-dependent reduced subspace can be used to predict solutions to nonlinear PDEs while retaining the advantages of projection-based reduced dynamics. Overall, this method provides a promising framework for fast and physically grounded data-assisted simulation of nonlinear PDEs.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from cs.LG

Atom-JEPA: Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecture for 3D Atomistic Systems

Large-scale self-supervised pretraining has reshaped modern machine learning, substantially advancing the ability of language and vision models to generalize across downstream tasks. While deep learning has driven considerable progress in modeling atomistic systems in recent years, self-supervised pretraining in this domain has not yet achieved comparable downstream generalization. To address this, we introduce Atom-JEPA, a self-supervised pretraining framework that learns latent representations from unlabeled 3D structures through complementary atom-level and substructure-level objectives inspired by joint-embedding predictive architectures. We pretrain Atom-JEPA on large-scale molecular and crystalline datasets and evaluate its transfer performance by fine-tuning on a diverse set of downstream property prediction tasks. Atom-JEPA achieves state-of-the-art performance on molecular ADMET and quantum-chemical property prediction tasks, and is highly competitive in predicting the physical properties of crystalline materials. These results demonstrate the potential of latent-space predictive pretraining to support broad downstream generalization from structural data alone. Code and pretrained model checkpoints are publicly available at https://github.com/khelverskovp/atom-jepa
Read the full abstract

All authors Kasper Helverskov Petersen, Rasmus Hannibal Tirsgaard, François R J Cornet, Mikkel Jordahn, Mikkel N. Schmidt

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from math.NA

AdHImEx: Adaptively High-Order Implicit-Explicit Transport for Large Time Steps

Adaptively Implicit-Explicit (AdImEx) time stepping provides stability for large time steps for mass-conservative transport, making it attractive for the numerical representation of advection in weather and climate prediction. Existing AdImEx transport schemes become first-order accurate in the large-time-step, implicit regime and may require multiple sparse matrix solutions per time step. This work introduces AdHImEx, a new AdImEx scheme that addresses both limitations simultaneously. AdHImEx provides second-order accuracy for large Courant numbers while requiring only a single matrix solution per time step. It is a Runge-Kutta scheme that blends third-order accurate explicit time stepping and Crank-Nicolson implicit time stepping to provide numerically verified stability for Courant numbers up to 100. AdHImEx is designed for flows that are predominantly explicit, activating implicit time stepping only where large Courant numbers occur. It retains the full efficiency and third-order accuracy of the explicit time stepping in regions with small Courant numbers. In this work, it is combined with a fifth-order accurate finite-volume discretisation in space for mass conservation. A second contribution of this work is a novel stage-dependent treatment of the divergence operator that preserves constancy despite different implicit and explicit Runge-Kutta stage time steps and spatially varying implicitness, removing spurious divergence. This innovation is applicable to other AdImEx time stepping schemes. Convergence, transport, and efficiency tests demonstrate substantial improvements over previous first-order AdImEx schemes, little phase and amplitude error, accurate transport on locally refined meshes with large Courant numbers, and promising efficiency characteristics for atmospheric transport.
Read the full abstract

All authors Amber J. te Winkel, Hilary Weller, Christian Kühnlein, James Kent

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.soft

Efficient Searches for Low-Energy Structures in Clusters with Thousands of Particles: Application to the Thomson Problem

We propose an algorithm for identifying low-energy minima in systems containing thousands of particles, at moderate computational cost. We focus on spherical crystals, in which particles form ordered structures on the surface of a sphere. Our method uses symmetric seed configurations, or known structures, to initialize searches across contiguous ranges of system sizes. Newly identified minima are then used to guide searches at neighbouring sizes, allowing information to propagate efficiently through configuration space. We have tested this approach on the Thomson problem, one of the few interacting-particle systems for which global optimization has been considered for systems of this size. We substantially improve on many previous solutions, particularly at larger system sizes, where systematic global optimization is computationally expensive. Since favourable packings for the Thomson problem are reflected in systems spanning atomistic to mesoscopic length scales, the newly characterized defect patterns may inform structure prediction for a broad range of problems with spherical topology.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from physics.chem-ph

Learning consistent molecular mechanics force fields from first principles

Classical force fields (FFs) remain the workhorse for large-scale simulations even as machine-learned interatomic potentials (MLIPs) approach ab initio accuracy. They decompose total configuration energies into simple effective interactions whose parameters are traditionally assigned based on atom or bond types, enabling efficient simulations but also limiting their ability to adapt across configurations. Recent machine learning approaches have improved the accuracy and transferability of bonded parameters in these FFs by inferring them as functions of local atomic environments, but still rely on empirical nonbonded parameters for practical simulations. In this work, we introduce a unified approach, grappa-fullFF, which learns both bonded and nonbonded parameters consistently and simultaneously from ab initio reference data. By incorporating physically inspired regularization via supervision of the electrostatic potential and an architecture that facilitates charge equilibration, our model recovers accurate electric response properties, achieves state-of-the-art accuracy on geometry optimization benchmarks, and reproduces the conformational sampling of both classical and existing machine-learned FFs, without relying on externally assigned nonbonded parameters.
Read the full abstract

All authors Berkay Günes, Leif Seute, Jigyasa Nigam, Frauke Gräter

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from physics.flu-dyn

Only Linear Constraints Survive Coarse-Graining: Evaluating Physics-Constrained Neural Operators on Stochastically Forced Turbulence

A physics-informed loss adds a discretised PDE residual to the data term, but is only strictly valid if the equations being enforced are closed on the fields being fitted. This fails on coarse-grained, stochastically forced data: nonlinear terms in the PDE generally do not commute with the filter, so the coarse-grained fields do not satisfy the original equations, and driving their residual to zero encodes an implicit closure into the learned operator. Under normalised, translation-invariant filtering on a periodic domain, constant-coefficient linear constraints remain valid on the filtered grid. For the 2D incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, two such constraints are continuity and global momentum balance. We enforce these exactly by applying a closed-form projection on the output of a Fourier neural operator (FNO) at $O(N \log N)$ cost. On two-dimensional isotropic turbulence, truncated so that its forcing lies entirely beyond the cutoff wavenumber, the projection achieves a continuity error of $5.0\times10^{-7}$ against 0.51 for a plain FNO and 0.17 for a physics-informed FNO, and a global momentum balance error of $8.6\times10^{-11}$ against $7.5\times10^{-4}$ and $8.3\times10^{-4}$. The projection only costs an extra 2% of training time, and takes the fraction of rollouts whose energy remains bounded at 448 steps from 0.18 to 0.87. On resolved Kolmogorov flow, test-time optimisation costs approximately 3,300$\times$ as much per trajectory as the projection, while leaving maximum divergence three orders of magnitude higher. Nonlinear constraints can also be enforced once their unclosed terms are modelled: closing the global energy balance with a constant subgrid flux, fitted from the coarse training data alone, removes the 20.9% energy deficit that enforcing the unclosed balance produces and keeps every free-running rollout bounded over 2,000 steps.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from quant-ph

Demonstration of Parallel Multi-QPU Execution for Fragment-Based Quantum Chemistry Using On-Premises Hardware

Fragment molecular orbital (FMO) quantum chemistry offers a natural route to parallel quantum computing: large molecular calculations can be decomposed into smaller quantum subproblems that can, in principle, run concurrently. Their practical benefit on real quantum hardware, however, has remained unclear. We demonstrate parallel FMO calculations on three room-temperature diamond-based 'Quoll' quantum computers installed on-site at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. Helium clusters (He$_{n}$, $n=2,4,8,10,14$) served as a testbed for total energy calculations using the Quantum Wave Function Sampler (QWFS), a selected configuration interaction (SCI) approach. We compare two execution modes: synchronous shot-parallel execution, in which quantum processors jointly sample QWFS circuits and combine their SPAM-corrected counts into a single probability distribution; and asynchronous fragment-parallel execution, in which processors independently evaluate FMO fragments using device-specific optimized circuits. Both modes increase quantum sampling throughput without systematic loss of accuracy. The three-QPU shot-parallel workflow reaches a parallel efficiency of $93.60\%$, while the fragment-parallel workflow achieves a measured efficiency of $75.01\%$, increasing to $95.17\%$ when excluding the non-useful idle time associated with non-interruptible submitted jobs. In both cases, the assembled FMO-QWFS energies remain chemically accurate compared to the classical ideal. These results provide a proof-of-concept demonstration that parallel quantum execution can improve the practical throughput of quantum chemistry workflows on prototype hardware, motivating the development of future HPC environments with many fault-tolerant quantum processors operating as a distributed resource for molecular and materials simulation.
Read the full abstract

All authors Nils Herrmann, Mariam Akhtar, Luke W. Bertels, Leigh Cameron, Raymond Chan, Lei Cheng, Daniel Claudino, Mark de Burgh, Simon Gemmell, Rugang Geng, Geoff Gillett, Travis Humble, Stephan Irle, John P. McMahon, Christian Ortiz, Florian Preis, Andreas Sawadsky, Bianca Sawyer, Reuben Singer, Sai Meghana Tunikipati, Cameron Walters, Lachlan Whichello, Adam Zegelin, Marcus W. Doherty

Computational Physics

A pressure-based coupled general synthetic iterative scheme for rarefied gas flow simulation

This work develops a pressure-based coupled (PBC) GSIS. Within each GSIS iteration, a conventional kinetic solver advances the velocity distribution function, from which non-equilibrium constitutive relations are extracted. A PBC macroscopic solver then solves the steady macroscopic synthetic equations: continuity and momentum equations are solved as a coupled pressure-velocity system under fixed temperature, followed by a segregated temperature solve. A boundary treatment is constructed to maintain strict consistency between kinetic boundary fluxes and macroscopic boundary conditions throughout the macroscopic iterations. The proposed method is validated against direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) data across multiple three-dimensional test cases, including tube-to-vacuum flows, a dynamic gas lock configuration for EUV lithography, divertors in nuclear fusion, and sphere flow at Mach numbers up to 10. Numerical results demonstrate that our GSIS-PBC preserves asymptotic-preserving properties and yields satisfactory accuracy across continuum-to-transitional flow regimes. For low-speed near-continuum internal flows, GSIS-PBC delivers wall clock time speed-ups of up to two orders of magnitude compared with the conventional iterative scheme, and substantially outperforms the original density-based GSIS for challenging low-Mach internal flow problems. For nuclear-fusion divertor flows, GSIS-PBC is faster than the DSMC by four orders of magnitude.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from cs.AI

Explore, Then Commit: Measurement-Efficient Scientific Law Discovery with Language Models

Scientific law discovery requires selecting measurements and converting evidence into a governing equation. We evaluate an explore-then-commit protocol in which a large language model proposes hypotheses, a programmatic planner gathers measurements, and a fresh prompt synthesizes the final law from fixed observations. The protocol combines structured probes, automatic numerical diagnostics, restricted measurement batches, and optional interpreter access. Across 576 NewtonBench trials, we compare eight configurations on 12 physics modules using GPT-4.1-mini and a medium-difficulty GPT-4.1 replication. On medium tasks, interpreter-enabled planners use 8.6 versus 22.5 measurements per trial for GPT-4.1-mini and 8.9 versus 43.0 for GPT-4.1. Their mean magnitude-based root-mean-squared logarithmic error falls from 2.514 to 0.202 and from 0.626 to 0.149, respectively. An additional audit retains incomplete and invalid submissions in a coverage-sensitive analysis. Observed symbolic-accuracy gains are less consistent across modules, and random acquisition is competitive with disagreement scoring. Measurement savings occur in every module, but unequal batch constraints prevent attributing them solely to acquisition quality. These results support the complete protocol as a promising measurement-efficient configuration, while leaving its causal components and generalization beyond noiseless direct-equation tasks unresolved.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics

Characteristics of extinction behavior of ammonia partial cracking simulated fuels in counterflow premixed flames under lean condition

In this study, the lean extinction behaviors of CH4 and a 16% cracked ammonia surrogate fuel, CR16, in counterflow premixed flames were compared. Experiments were conducted along with one-dimensional simulations using OPPDIF; the GRI-Mech 3.0 and UCSD mechanisms were applied to CH4 and CR16, respectively. CR16 exhibited higher extinction strain rates and resilience to strain-induced blow-out (RSIB) than those of CH4 under lean conditions. At Phi = 0.66, although both flames had the same extinction strain rate, CR16 showed a higher RSIB because of its longer flame time. Near its extinction, CR16 sustained H2 consumption, radical reactions, and heat release through the interflame region toward the stagnation plane. Hydrogen oxidation coupled with nitrogen-related pathways, including NH2 + NO and HNO reactions, supported this behavior. These results clarify the chemical basis for the superior extinction resistance of economically favorable low-cracking-ratio ammonia fuel.
Read the full abstract

All authors Jinseong Kim, Hyunchang Lee, Keeman Lee, Assaad R. Masri

Monday 5 October

Computational Physics

A Gauge-Inspired Coupled Fokker–Planck System for Multistate Stochastic Dynamics: Formalism and 1-D Numerical Implementation

Extending the Fokker–Planck equation to a coupled system of equations through non-Abelian symmetry groups offers a powerful theoretical framework for coupled multi-state stochastic systems. However, translating this abstract gauge field formulation into viable numerical predictions remains an unaddressed challenge. Motivated by our previous work on ice crystal habit evolution, in this work we bridge this gap by presenting the first numerical solver for an SU(2) gauge-coupled Fokker–Planck system in (1+1) dimensions. Using an operator-splitting scheme combined with a non-oscillatory advection solver, our algorithm strictly ensures probability conservation, non-negativity, and numerical stability. We demonstrate that non-Abelian gauge coupling acts as a cross-reactive feedback loop that fundamentally alters system dynamics, driving continuous probability exchange between states, suppressing localised density peaks, and forcing long-time spatial delocalisation. Validated across linear and quadratic coupling regimes up to strong interactions (g <= 1.0), this work establishes the foundational computational infrastructure needed to integrate complex multi-state physics. Overall, while our approach provides a key step toward improving ice cloud representation in atmospheric and climate models, the underlying physical framework and computational engine remain fundamentally general and multidisciplinary, offering a versatile paradigm for any domain requiring coupled multi-state stochastic equations.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from physics.flu-dyn

(Why) Jets quantise trapped acoustic modes

High-subsonic turbulent jets trap acoustic modes in their potential core. The modes lie in narrow frequency bands that are $O(0.1)$-wide in Strouhal number, $St$. By studying a Mach 0.9, Reynolds number $10^6$ jet, this work confirms an earlier hypothesis: each band is made up of $O(10)$ discrete frequencies, $\Delta St \sim O(0.01)$ apart. To resolve them, we collect $O(100\,000)$ snapshots from dedicated schlieren experiments and large-eddy simulations (LES), and apply spectral proper orthogonal decomposition (SPOD). Our SPOD algorithm uses sine tapers and enforces the jet's rotational and reflectional symmetries. For both the schlieren and the LES, the trapped SPOD modes are bounded in the $St$-$x$ and $St$-$k$ planes, where $x$ and $k$ are respectively the axial coordinate and wavenumber. The bounds quantise the modes in $St$, $x$, and $k$, such that the $n_x$th mode in $St$ has $n_x$ antinodes along $x$ and $k$. We then predict trapped modes with local, global, modal, and non-modal stability theories. We find evidence of a competition between modal and non-modal stability. From only the theoretical bounds, we build a simple in-phase standing-wave resonance model that predicts the quantised global-mode frequencies.
Read the full abstract

All authors Brandon Yeung, Michael N. Stavropoulos, Vincent Jaunet, Peter Jordan, Oliver T. Schmidt

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from physics.bio-ph

Threat Evasion and Information Propagation in Cognitive Flocks

Information sharing, threat perception, and collective evasion highlight the advantages of swarm intelligence. Here, we study the behavior of flocks of cognitive agents, based on numerical simulations of the augmented inertial spin model, with an explicit predator. Each agent on the predator-facing side of the flock perceives the threat, triggering collective turns through local interactions. We show that the augmented inertial spin model sustains nearly linear information propagation in the under-damped regime, even with realistic flocking interactions such as local collision avoidance and swarm cohesion in addition to alignment. The turning distance of the flock to a stationary predator scales with the ratio $\Delta_p/(v_0\sqrt{\eta})$, identifying an optimal balance between response strength $\Delta_p$, flock speed $v_0$, and damping $\eta$ of information propagation. Fragmentation arises when different parts of the flock turn in different directions, however, fast information propagation can synchronize these responses and maintain flock cohesion while under pursuit. For two predators, a combination of stability analysis and simulations reveals a stark contrast between flock and single-particle reactions, with scattering angle shaped by flock geometry, predator position, and the heterogeneous responses of the detecting front. Together, these results show how information propagation, flock geometry, and dynamics together shapes collective escape, providing general principles relevant to both biological flocks and robotic swarms.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from cond-mat.mes-hall

Adjoint-State Identifiability of Piezo-Tunable Valley Splitting in 2D Magnetic Heterostructures

Controlling valley degrees of freedom with mechanical strain is a promising approach for solid-state information processing. Current theoretical literature routinely predicts strain-tuned valley splitting at the microscopic level but rarely evaluates whether these quantum predictions remain statistically recoverable in realistic macroscopic devices. This manuscript establishes a fully classical, partial differential equation-constrained multiscale inverse framework for quantifying the device-level identifiability of predicted strain-tunable valley effects in two-dimensional magnetic heterostructures, demonstrated here for a molybdenum disulfide and chromium tribromide heterostructure. First-principles structural relaxations confirm a chiral $C_3$ point-group symmetry which mathematically reduces the relevant exchange-strain coupling tensor to a single scalar. A partial differential equation-constrained adjoint-state architecture successfully bridges continuum elastodynamics to valley-resolved anomalous Hall transport. Density functional theory yields a coupling estimate of $\eta \approx -0.07$ meV whose 95% confidence interval is consistent with zero. Evaluating this specific coupling magnitude against established thermal noise and velocity saturation limits defines a safe operating window bounded between 262.0 and 22,337.6 V/cm. Rather than asserting a confirmed nonzero material property this bounded operational window functions as a precise diagnostic threshold. Deploying this rigorous statistical identifiability framework provides a necessary mathematical filter to determine the true experimental viability of theoretically predicted two-dimensional materials before complex physical fabrication.
Read the full abstract

Computational Physics · Cross-listed from astro-ph.GA

Molecular hydrogen formation on dust: The impact of gas-dust drift on formation efficiency

Molecular hydrogen is predominantly formed on dust-grain surfaces in the interstellar medium, where relative gas-dust motion can arise in dynamically active environments. While the dependence of H$_2$ formation on grain temperature and surface properties is well studied, the impact of gas-dust drift has received little attention. We investigate how gas-dust drift modifies H$_2$ formation, focusing on the competition between the drift-enhanced H-atom collision rate and reduced sticking at higher impact energies. We use an event-driven kinetic Monte Carlo model that follows individual H atoms on spherical silicate and carbonaceous grains, including adsorption, surface migration, thermal desorption, and Langmuir-Hinshelwood (LH) and Eley-Rideal (ER) reactions. Drift is described by a shifted Maxwellian velocity distribution, and we compare constant and impact-energy-dependent sticking probabilities. Drift produces increasingly anisotropic distributions of adsorbed H and H$_2$ formation across the grain surface. Assuming constant sticking, increasing drift enhances H$_2$ formation through the higher collision rate, with efficiencies up to $\epsilon=0.3-0.4$. With energy-dependent sticking, strong drift instead suppresses formation on both materials, reducing efficiencies to $\epsilon=0.01-0.03$. Carbonaceous grains remain efficient to higher dust temperatures than silicate grains. ER reactions dominate over most of the investigated parameter space and become increasingly important at strong drift as the reduced surface population suppresses LH reactions. Thus, enhanced collision rates under gas-dust drift do not necessarily increase H$_2$ formation. Models of dynamically active environments should account for both relative gas-dust velocities and their effects on sticking.
Read the full abstract

All authors Stefan Reissl, Simon C. O. Glover, Ralf S. Klessen, Liam S. Morrissey, Mordecai-Mark Mac Low