Snake net with a neural network for detecting multiple phases in the phase diagram

What is it about?

Unsupervised machine learning applied to the study of phase transitions is an ongoing and interesting research direction. The active contour model, also called the snake model, was initially proposed for target contour extraction in two-dimensional images. In order to obtain a physical phase diagram, the snake model with an artificial neural network is applied in an unsupervised learning way by the authors of [Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 176401 (2018)]. It guesses the phase boundary as an initial snake and then drives the snake to convergence with forces estimated by the artificial neural network. In this work we extend this unsupervised learning method with one contour to a snake net with multiple contours for the purpose of obtaining several phase boundaries in a phase diagram. For the classical Blume-Capel model, the phase diagram containing three and four phases is obtained. Moreover, a balloon force is introduced, which helps the snake to leave a wrong initial position and thus may allow for greater freedom in the initialization of the snake.

Featured Image

Photo by Pratik Patil on Unsplash

Photo by Pratik Patil on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This model requires the use of high-order Lagrangians i.e. Jacobi-Ostragradsky canonical coordinates and involves a real physical application in phases of e.g. Bose-Einstein Condensates, superfluids, etc...

Perspectives