9,319 research outputs found
The instanton method and its numerical implementation in fluid mechanics
A precise characterization of structures occurring in turbulent fluid flows
at high Reynolds numbers is one of the last open problems of classical physics.
In this review we discuss recent developments related to the application of
instanton methods to turbulence. Instantons are saddle point configurations of
the underlying path integrals. They are equivalent to minimizers of the related
Freidlin-Wentzell action and known to be able to characterize rare events in
such systems. While there is an impressive body of work concerning their
analytical description, this review focuses on the question on how to compute
these minimizers numerically. In a short introduction we present the relevant
mathematical and physical background before we discuss the stochastic Burgers
equation in detail. We present algorithms to compute instantons numerically by
an efficient solution of the corresponding Euler-Lagrange equations. A second
focus is the discussion of a recently developed numerical filtering technique
that allows to extract instantons from direct numerical simulations. In the
following we present modifications of the algorithms to make them efficient
when applied to two- or three-dimensional fluid dynamical problems. We
illustrate these ideas using the two-dimensional Burgers equation and the
three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations
Machine Learning tools for global PDF fits
The use of machine learning algorithms in theoretical and experimental
high-energy physics has experienced an impressive progress in recent years,
with applications from trigger selection to jet substructure classification and
detector simulation among many others. In this contribution, we review the
machine learning tools used in the NNPDF family of global QCD analyses. These
include multi-layer feed-forward neural networks for the model-independent
parametrisation of parton distributions and fragmentation functions, genetic
and covariance matrix adaptation algorithms for training and optimisation, and
closure testing for the systematic validation of the fitting methodology.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the XXIIIth
Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum conference, 1-6 August 2018,
University of Maynooth, Irelan
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