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At least 271 records · Page 15

PyAMG: Algebraic Multigrid Solvers in Python

PyAMG is a Python package of algebraic multigrid (AMG) solvers and supporting tools for approximating the solution to large, sparse linear systems of algebraic equations, Ax = b, where A is an n × n sparse matrix. Sparse linear systems arise in a range of problems in science, from fluid flows to solid mechanics to data analysis. While the direct solvers available in SciPy’s sparse linear algebra package (scipy.sparse.linalg) are highly efficient, in many cases iterative methods are preferred due to overall complexity. However, the iterative methods in SciPy, such as CG and GMRES, often require an efficient preconditioner in order to achieve a lower complexity. Preconditioning is a powerful tool whereby the conditioning of the linear system and convergence rate of the iterative method are both dramatically improved. PyAMG constructs multigrid solvers for use as a preconditioner in this setting. A summary of multigrid and algebraic multigrid solvers can be found in Olson (2015a), in Olson (2015b), and in Falgout (2006); a detailed description can be found in Briggs et al. (2000) and Trottenberg et al. (2001).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Investigation of finite-volume methods to capture shocks and turbulence spectra in compressible flows

The aim of the present paper is to provide a comparison between several finite-volume methods of different numerical accuracy: the second-order Godunov method with PPM interpolation and the high-order finite-volume WENO method. In this work, the results show that while on a smooth problem the high-order method performs better than the second-order one, when the solution contains a shock all the methods collapse to first-order accuracy. In the context of the decay of compressible homogeneous isotropic turbulence with shocklets, the actual overall order of accuracy of the methods reduces to second-order, despite the use of fifth-order reconstruction schemes at cell interfaces. Most important, results in terms of turbulent spectra are similar regardless of the numerical methods employed, except that the PPM method fails to provide an accurate representation in the high-frequency range of the spectra. It is found that this specific issue comes from the slope-limiting procedure and a novel hybrid PPM/WENO method is developed that has the ability to capture the turbulent spectra with the accuracy of a high-order method, but at the cost of the second-order Godunov method. Overall, it is shown that virtually the same physical solution can be obtained much faster by refining a simulation with the second-order method and carefully chosen numerical procedures, rather than running a coarse high-order simulation. Our results demonstrate the importance of evaluating the accuracy of a numerical method in terms of its actual spectral dissipation and dispersion properties on mixed smooth/shock cases, rather than by the theoretical formal order of convergence rate.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

nPINNs: nonlocal Physics-Informed Neural Networks for a parametrized nonlocal universal Laplacian operator. Algorithms and Applications

Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) are effective in solving inverse problems based on differential and integro-differential equations with sparse, noisy, unstructured, and multifidelity data. PINNs incorporate all available information, including governing equations (reflecting physical laws), initial-boundary conditions, and observations of quantities of interest, into a loss function to be minimized, thus recasting the original problem into an optimization problem. In this paper, we extend PINNs to parameter and function inference for integral equations such as nonlocal Poisson and nonlocal turbulence models, and we refer to them as nonlocal PINNs (nPINNs). The contribution of the paper is three-fold. First, we propose a unified nonlocal Laplace operator, which converges to the classical Laplacian as one of the operator parameters, the nonlocal interaction radius δ goes to zero, and to the fractional Laplacian as δ goes to infinity. This universal operator forms a super-set of classical Laplacian and fractional Laplacian operators and, thus, has the potential to fit a broad spectrum of data sets. We provide theoretical convergence rates with respect to δ and verify them via numerical experiments. Second, we use nPINNs to estimate the two parameters, δ and α, characterizing the kernel of the unified operator. The strong non-convexity of the loss function yielding multiple (good) local minima reveals the occurrence of the operator mimicking phenomenon, that is, different pairs of estimated parameters could produce multiple solutions of comparable accuracy. Third, we propose another nonlocal operator with spatially variable order α(γ), which is more suitable for modeling turbulent Couette flow. Our results show that nPINNs can jointly infer this function as well as δ. More importantly, these parameters exhibit a universal behavior with respect to the Reynolds number, a finding that contributes to our understanding of nonlocal interactions in wall-bounded turbulence.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Improvements to the New CTH Code Verification & Validation Test Suite (FY2020)

The CTH multiphysics hydrocode, which is used for a wide range of important calculations, has undertaken in recent years to overhaul its software quality and testing processes. A key part of this effort entailed building a new, robust V&V test suite made up of traditional hydrocode verification problems, such as those listed in the ASC Tri-Lab Test Suite and the Enhanced Tri-Lab Test Suite, as well as validation problems for some of CTHs most frequently used equations of state, materials models, and other key capabilities. Substantial progress towards this goal was made in FY19. In FY20, this test suite has been expanded to include verification and validation tests of the Sesame and JWL equation of state models as well as the Mader verification problem from the Tri-Lab Test Suite and the Blake verification problem - a linear elastic analog to the Hunter problem from the Enhanced Tri-Lab Test Suite. This report documents CTH performance on the new test suite problems. Verification test results are compared to analytic solutions and, for most tests, convergence results are presented. Validation test results are compared to experimental data and mesh refinement studies are included. CTH performs well overall on the new test problems. Convergence rates for the Blake and Mader problems are comparable to those for similar ASC codes. The JWL and Sesame verification tests show good agreement with analytic solutions. Likewise, CTH simulation results show good agreement with experimental validation data for the Sesame and JWL equations of state for the materials tested. Future V&V work will focus on adding tests for other key capabilities like fracture and high explosive models.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

A virtual element generalization on polygonal meshes of the Scott-Vogelius finite element method for the 2-D Stokes problem

The virtual element method (VEM) is a Galerkin approximation method that extends the finite element method to polytopal meshes. In this paper, we present a conforming formulation that generalizes the Scott-Vogelius finite element method (FEM) for the numerical approximation of the Stokes problem to polygonal meshes in the framework of the virtual element method. In particular, we consider a straightforward application of the virtual element approximation space for scalar elliptic problems to the vector case and approximate the pressure variable through discontinuous polynomials. We assess the effectiveness of the numerical approximation by investigating the convergence on a manufactured solution problem and a set of representative polygonal meshes. We numerically show that this formulation is convergent with optimal convergence rates except for the lowest-order case on triangular and square meshes where the method coincides with the P 1 - P 0 Scott-Vogelius scheme, which is well-known to be unstable.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Combining DPG in space with DPG time-marching scheme for the transient advection-reaction equation

In this article, we present a general methodology to combine the Discontinuous PetrovGalerkin (DPG) method in space and time in the context of methods of lines for transient advection-reaction problems. We first introduce a semidiscretization in space with a DPG method redefining the ideas of optimal testing and practicality of the method in this context. Then, we apply the recently developed DPG-based time-marching scheme, which is of exponential-type, to the resulting system of Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs). We also discuss how to efficiently compute the action of the exponential of the matrix coming from the space semidiscretization without assembling the full matrix. Finally, we verify the proposed method for 1D+time advection-reaction problems showing optimal convergence rates for smooth solutions and more stable results for linear conservation laws comparing to the classical exponential integrators.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Variance Reduction within Implicit Monte Carlo Thermal Radiation Transport using the Local Importance Function Transform [Slides]

System of equations derived by Fleck and Cummings to model time-dependent thermal radiative transfer (TRT) problems: Solution of radiation specific intensity (I), non-linearly coupled to material internal energy (U); Absorption and re-emission approximated by effective scattering events. Useful for high-energy density physics simulations: i.e., astrophysics, inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Whereas deterministic methods are fully discretized and free of statistical noise, Monte Carlo methods allow for dynamic sampling of the phase space at the price of statistical noise; Monte Carlo methods are also characterized by a slow $\frac{1}{√Ν}$ convergence rate.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

The eXtended virtual element method for elliptic problems with weakly singular solutions

This paper introduces a novel eXtended virtual element method, an extension of the conforming virtual element method. The X-VEM is formulated by incorporating appropriate enrichment functions in the local spaces. The method is designed to handle highly generic enrichment functions, including singularities arising from fractured domains. By achieving consistency on the enrichment space, the method is proven to achieve arbitrary approximation orders even in the presence of singular solutions. The paper includes a complete convergence analysis under general assumptions on mesh regularity, and numerical experiments validating the method’s accuracy on various mesh families, demonstrating optimal convergence rates in the L 2 - and H 1 - norms on fractured or L-shaped domains.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Time-dependent Hamiltonian Simulation of Highly Oscillatory Dynamics and Superconvergence for Schrödinger Equation

We propose a simple quantum algorithm for simulating highly oscillatory quantum dynamics, which does not require complicated quantum control logic for handling time-ordering operators. To our knowledge, this is the first quantum algorithm that is both insensitive to the rapid changes of the time-dependent Hamiltonian and exhibits commutator scaling. Our method can be used for efficient Hamiltonian simulation in the interaction picture. In particular, we demonstrate that for the simulation of the Schrödinger equation, our method exhibits superconvergence and achieves a surprising second order convergence rate, of which the proof rests on a careful application of pseudo-differential calculus. Numerical results verify the effectiveness and the superconvergence property of our method.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Efficient First-Order Algorithms for Large-Scale, Non-Smooth Maximum Entropy Models with Application to Wildfire Science

Maximum entropy (MaxEnt) models are a class of statistical models that use the maximum entropy principle to estimate probability distributions from data. Due to the size of modern data sets, MaxEnt models need efficient optimization algorithms to scale well for big data applications. State-of-the-art algorithms for MaxEnt models, however, were not originally designed to handle big data sets; these algorithms either rely on technical devices that may yield unreliable numerical results, scale poorly, or require smoothness assumptions that many practical MaxEnt models lack. In this paper, we present novel optimization algorithms that overcome the shortcomings of state-of-the-art algorithms for training large-scale, non-smooth MaxEnt models. Our proposed first-order algorithms leverage the Kullback–Leibler divergence to train large-scale and non-smooth MaxEnt models efficiently. For MaxEnt models with discrete probability distribution of n elements built from samples, each containing m features, the stepsize parameter estimation and iterations in our algorithms scale on the order of O(mn) operations and can be trivially parallelized. Moreover, the strong ℓ1 convexity of the Kullback–Leibler divergence allows for larger stepsize parameters, thereby speeding up the convergence rate of our algorithms. To illustrate the efficiency of our novel algorithms, we consider the problem of estimating probabilities of fire occurrences as a function of ecological features in the Western US MTBS-Interagency wildfire data set. Our numerical results show that our algorithms outperform the state of the art by one order of magnitude and yield results that agree with physical models of wildfire occurrence and previous statistical analyses of wildfire drivers.

Physics↗

Toward Higher-order Accuracy in Self-gravitating Hydrodynamics

High-order algorithms have emerged in numerical astrophysics as a promising avenue to reduce truncation error (proportional to a power of the linear resolution Δ x ) with only a moderate increase to computational expense. Significant effort has been placed in the development of finite-volume algorithms for (magneto)hydrodynamics; however, state-of-the-art astrophysical simulations tightly couple a plenitude of physics, additionally including gravity, photon transport, cosmic-ray transport, chemistry, and/or diffusion, to name a few. Algorithms frequently operator-split this additional physics (often a first-order error in time) and/or adopt a model wherein their evaluation is limited to second-order accuracy in space. In this work, we present a fourth-order-accurate finite-volume scheme for self-gravitating hydrodynamics on a uniform Cartesian grid. The method supplies source terms for the gravitational acceleration ( ρ g ) and gravitational energy release ( ρ v · g ) associated with fourth-order-accurate solutions to the Poisson equation. Our scheme (1) guarantees the conservation of total linear momentum while (2) decreasing (in proportion to Δ x 4 ) the effects of spurious heating and/or cooling associated with truncation error in the gravity. We demonstrate expected convergence rates for the algorithm by measuring errors in test problems evolving self-gravity modified linear waves and 3D polytropic equilibria. We test robustness of the algorithm by integrating an induced “inside-out” adiabatic collapse. We also discuss a method to smoothly downgrade the solution to second-order spatial accuracy to avoid spurious overshoots near steep density and/or pressure gradients.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A virtual element generalization on polygonal meshes of the Scott-Vogelius finite element method for the 2-D Stokes problem

The Virtual Element Method (VEM) is a Galerkin approximation method that extends the Finite Element Method (FEM) to polytopal meshes. In this paper, we present a conforming formulation that generalizes the Scott-Vogelius finite element method for the numerical approximation of the Stokes problem to polygonal meshes in the framework of the virtual element method. In particular, we consider a straightforward application of the virtual element approximation space for scalar elliptic problems to the vector case and approximate the pressure variable through discontinuous polynomials. We assess the effectiveness of the numerical approximation by investigating the convergence on a manufactured solution problem and a set of representative polygonal meshes. Finally, we numerically show that this formulation is convergent with optimal convergence rates except for the lowest-order case on triangular meshes, where the method coincides with the $\mathbb{P}_1$ – $\mathbb{P}_0$ Scott-Vogelius scheme, and on square meshes, which are situations that are well-known to be unstable.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Subspace Methods in Multi-Parameter Seismic Full Waveform Inversion

In full waveform inversion (FWI) high-resolution subsurface model parameters are sought. FWI is normally treated as a nonlinear least-squares inverse problem, in which the minimum of the corresponding misfit function is found by updating the model parameters. When multiple elastic or acoustic properties are solved for, simple gradient methods tend to confuse parameter classes. This is referred to as parameter cross-talk; it leads to incorrect model solutions, poor convergence and strong dependence on the scaling of the different parameter types. Determining step lengths in a subspace domain, rather than directly in terms of gradients of different parameters, is a potentially valuable approach to address this problem. The particular subspace used can be defined over a span of different sets of data or different parameter classes, provided it involves a small number of vectors compared to those contained in the whole model space. Additionally, in a subspace method, the basis vectors are defined first, and a local minimum is found in the space spanned by these. We examine the application of the subspace method within acoustic FWI in determining simultaneously updates for velocity and density. We first discuss the choice of basis vectors to construct the spanned space, from linear updates by distinguishing only the contributions of different parameter classes towards nonlinear updates by adding the contributions of higher-order perturbations of each parameter class. The numerical character of FWI solutions generated via subspace methods involving different basis vectors is then analyzed and compared with traditional FWI methods. The subspace methods can provide better reconstructions of the model, especially for the velocity, as well as improved convergence rates, while the computational costs are still comparable with the traditional FWI methods.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Developing A Custom-Built Metal Aerosol Processing Chamber: Analysis of Aerosol Coagulation at Low Humidities

We have developed an intermediate size (906 L) aerosol processing chamber, and this work reports on the design and initial characterization of dry aerosol experiments. Specifically, we are determining wall-loss and coagulation correction factors using the observed size distribution measurements for surrogates of common aerosol classes: sodium chloride, sucrose, and biomass burning aerosol smoke. Results show that, on average, sodium chloride, sucrose, and smoke wall-loss rates converge to similar values on relatively short time scales (< 1 h). The fitted coagulation correction factor, W C -1 , for smoke particles (1.23 ± 0.312), indicates that on average they adhere to each other more than sodium chloride (0.969 ± 0.524) and sucrose (1.16 ± 1.38). The relative uncertainty is high for the coagulation correction, but it is consistent with our Monte Carlo error analysis. This study lays the foundation for future experiments at elevated humidity and supersaturation conditions to characterize the influence of particle shape on coagulation and cloud parameters.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗