Solving ill-posed inverse problems using iterative deep neural networks

We propose a partially learned approach for the solution of ill posed inverse problems with not necessarily linear forward operators. The method builds on ideas from classical regularization theory and recent advances in deep learning to perform learning while making use of prior information about the inverse problem encoded in the forward operator, noise model and a regularizing functional. The method results in a gradient-like iterative scheme, where the "gradient" component is learned using a convolutional network that includes the gradients of the data discrepancy and regularizer as input in each iteration. We present results of such a partially learned gradient scheme on a non-linear tomographic inversion problem with simulated data from both the Sheep-Logan phantom as well as a head CT. The outcome is compared against FBP and TV reconstruction and the proposed method provides a 5.4 dB PSNR improvement over the TV reconstruction while being significantly faster, giving reconstructions of 512 x 512 volumes in about 0.4 seconds using a single GPU

Artificial Neural Network Approach to the Analytic Continuation Problem

Inverse problems are encountered in many domains of physics, with analytic continuation of the imaginary Green's function into the real frequency domain being a particularly important example. However, the analytic continuation problem is ill defined and currently no analytic transformation for solving it is known. We present a general framework for building an artificial neural network (ANN) that solves this task with a supervised learning approach. Application of the ANN approach to quantum Monte Carlo calculations and simulated Green's function data demonstrates its high accuracy. By comparing with the commonly used maximum entropy approach, we show that our method can reach the same level of accuracy for low-noise input data, while performing significantly better when the noise strength increases. The computational cost of the proposed neural network approach is reduced by almost three orders of magnitude compared to the maximum entropy methodComment: 6 pages, 4 figures, supplementary material available as ancillary fil

Task adapted reconstruction for inverse problems

The paper considers the problem of performing a task defined on a model parameter that is only observed indirectly through noisy data in an ill-posed inverse problem. A key aspect is to formalize the steps of reconstruction and task as appropriate estimators (non-randomized decision rules) in statistical estimation problems. The implementation makes use of (deep) neural networks to provide a differentiable parametrization of the family of estimators for both steps. These networks are combined and jointly trained against suitable supervised training data in order to minimize a joint differentiable loss function, resulting in an end-to-end task adapted reconstruction method. The suggested framework is generic, yet adaptable, with a plug-and-play structure for adjusting both the inverse problem and the task at hand. More precisely, the data model (forward operator and statistical model of the noise) associated with the inverse problem is exchangeable, e.g., by using neural network architecture given by a learned iterative method. Furthermore, any task that is encodable as a trainable neural network can be used. The approach is demonstrated on joint tomographic image reconstruction, classification and joint tomographic image reconstruction segmentation