Michele Ceriotti (EPFL)

Title: Between physics and scaling: inductive biases in atomistic machine learning
Abstract: Machine-learning techniques are often applied to perform « end-to-end » predictions, making black-box estimates
of a property of interest using only a coarse description of the corresponding inputs.
In contrast, atomic-scale modeling of matter is most useful when it allows one to gather a mechanistic insight
into the microscopic processes that underlie the behavior of molecules and materials.
In this talk I will provide an overview of the progress that has been made combining these two philosophies,
using data-driven techniques to build surrogate models of the quantum mechanical behavior of atoms, enabling
« bottom-up » simulations that reveal the behavior of matter in realistic conditions with uncompromising accuracy.
I will critically discuss two ways by which physical-chemical ideas can be integrated into a machine-learning
framework. One way involves using physical priors, such as smoothness or symmetry of the structure-property
relations, to inform the mathematical structure of a generic ML approximation – an approach that has become
ubiquitous in the field, but that is increasingly challenged by the emergence of unconstrained models that can
directly learn physical constraints from large amounts of data. The other entails a deeper level of integration,
in which explicit physics-based models and approximations are built into the model architecture.
I will discuss several examples of the application of these ideas, from the calculation of electronic excitations
to the design of solid-state electrolyte materials for batteries and high-entropy alloys for catalysis, emphasizing
both the accuracy and the interpretability that can be achieved with a hybrid modeling approach, and providing an
overview of the exciting research directions that are made available by these new modeling tools.

These seminars are being made possible through the support of the CFM-ENS Chair « Modèles et Sciences des Données ».

The organizers: Giulio Biroli, Alex Cayco Gajic, Bruno Loureiro, Stéphane Mallat, Gabriel Peyré.