64,773 research outputs found
Signal mixture estimation for degenerate heavy Higgses using a deep neural network
If a new signal is established in future LHC data, a next question will be to
determine the signal composition, in particular whether the signal is due to
multiple near-degenerate states. We investigate the performance of a deep
learning approach to signal mixture estimation for the challenging scenario of
a ditau signal coming from a pair of degenerate Higgs bosons of opposite CP
charge. This constitutes a parameter estimation problem for a mixture model
with highly overlapping features. We use an unbinned maximum likelihood fit to
a neural network output, and compare the results to mixture estimation via a
fit to a single kinematic variable. For our benchmark scenarios we find a ~20%
improvement in the estimate uncertainty.Comment: v2, 12 pages, 7 figures, published in EPJ
Hierarchical Implicit Models and Likelihood-Free Variational Inference
Implicit probabilistic models are a flexible class of models defined by a
simulation process for data. They form the basis for theories which encompass
our understanding of the physical world. Despite this fundamental nature, the
use of implicit models remains limited due to challenges in specifying complex
latent structure in them, and in performing inferences in such models with
large data sets. In this paper, we first introduce hierarchical implicit models
(HIMs). HIMs combine the idea of implicit densities with hierarchical Bayesian
modeling, thereby defining models via simulators of data with rich hidden
structure. Next, we develop likelihood-free variational inference (LFVI), a
scalable variational inference algorithm for HIMs. Key to LFVI is specifying a
variational family that is also implicit. This matches the model's flexibility
and allows for accurate approximation of the posterior. We demonstrate diverse
applications: a large-scale physical simulator for predator-prey populations in
ecology; a Bayesian generative adversarial network for discrete data; and a
deep implicit model for text generation.Comment: Appears in Neural Information Processing Systems, 201
A new class of multiscale lattice cell (MLC) models for spatio-temporal evolutionary image representation
Spatio-temporal evolutionary (STE) images are a class of complex dynamical systems that evolve over both space and time. With increased interest in the investigation of nonlinear complex phenomena, especially spatio-temporal behaviour governed by evolutionary laws that are dependent
on both spatial and temporal dimensions, there has been an increased need to investigate model identification methods for this class of complex systems. Compared with pure temporal processes, the identification of spatio-temporal models from observed images is much more difficult and quite
challenging. Starting with an assumption that there is no apriori information about the true model but
only observed data are available, this study introduces a new class of multiscale lattice cell (MLC)
models to represent the rules of the associated spatio-temporal evolutionary system. An application to a chemical reaction exhibiting a spatio-temporal evolutionary behaviour, is investigated to demonstrate the new modelling framework
On the smoothness of nonlinear system identification
We shed new light on the \textit{smoothness} of optimization problems arising
in prediction error parameter estimation of linear and nonlinear systems. We
show that for regions of the parameter space where the model is not
contractive, the Lipschitz constant and -smoothness of the objective
function might blow up exponentially with the simulation length, making it hard
to numerically find minima within those regions or, even, to escape from them.
In addition to providing theoretical understanding of this problem, this paper
also proposes the use of multiple shooting as a viable solution. The proposed
method minimizes the error between a prediction model and the observed values.
Rather than running the prediction model over the entire dataset, multiple
shooting splits the data into smaller subsets and runs the prediction model
over each subset, making the simulation length a design parameter and making it
possible to solve problems that would be infeasible using a standard approach.
The equivalence to the original problem is obtained by including constraints in
the optimization. The new method is illustrated by estimating the parameters of
nonlinear systems with chaotic or unstable behavior, as well as neural
networks. We also present a comparative analysis of the proposed method with
multi-step-ahead prediction error minimization
A Coverage Study of the CMSSM Based on ATLAS Sensitivity Using Fast Neural Networks Techniques
We assess the coverage properties of confidence and credible intervals on the
CMSSM parameter space inferred from a Bayesian posterior and the profile
likelihood based on an ATLAS sensitivity study. In order to make those
calculations feasible, we introduce a new method based on neural networks to
approximate the mapping between CMSSM parameters and weak-scale particle
masses. Our method reduces the computational effort needed to sample the CMSSM
parameter space by a factor of ~ 10^4 with respect to conventional techniques.
We find that both the Bayesian posterior and the profile likelihood intervals
can significantly over-cover and identify the origin of this effect to physical
boundaries in the parameter space. Finally, we point out that the effects
intrinsic to the statistical procedure are conflated with simplifications to
the likelihood functions from the experiments themselves.Comment: Further checks about accuracy of neural network approximation, fixed
typos, added refs. Main results unchanged. Matches version accepted by JHE
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