arXiv subjects

Philip Harris

Publications and source records attributed to Philip Harris.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Machine Can Automatically Discover Parametric Functions to Model HEP Data

In HEP data analyses, finding an adequate function to model binned data has largely relied on a manual process: guess a functional form by intuition, fit, examine, then repeat until successful. We show that this iterative process can be automated by a machine using symbolic regression, which performs a data-driven search over function space without requiring prior knowledge of what an adequate function should look like. We present the SymbolFit package, which pairs symbolic regression with uncertainty modeling to target HEP analysis use cases, and demonstrate it on the CMS and ATLAS Run 2 dijet spectra: 560 independent seeded runs across seven simple fit configurations generated over 1000 functions fitting the spectra with $\chi^2/\text{NDF}\approx 1$, and 111 of the runs rediscovered the very dijet and UA2 functions used in published dijet searches.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2026

Dissecting Parton Showers with Multi-Point Energy Correlators

The last several years have seen tremendous progress in the ability to both compute and measure multi-point correlations in energy flux. The highly differential nature of energy correlators makes them ideal probes of multi-collinear factorization and azimuthal structure within jets. In this paper, we explore the phenomenology of four-point correlators in jet substructure. We identify experimentally realizable projections that probe different factorization channels onto splitting tensors and splitting functions. We perform a detailed phenomenological study using both Herwig and Pythia. By comparing parton shower results with analytic calculations in kinematic limits, we are able to disentangle intrinsic spin correlations from kinematic azimuthal correlations. In experimentally accessible kinematic regions, we find the spin correlations are subdominant, strongly motivating a complete calculation of the four-point correlator in QCD to provide a test of the parton shower results. We also present parameterizations and analysis algorithms that can be used experimentally. Our work sets the stage for the experimental measurement of these observables at the LHC, and their use as probes of the next generation of parton showers.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

AI-enabled gravitational-waves searches for binary neutron stars at optimal sensitivity

Gravitational Waves (GWs) represent the newest window of astronomy, furthering our understanding of compact objects like black holes and neutron stars in the Universe. The signal from two merging neutron stars is especially interesting since it brings the prospect of concordant electromagnetic and neutrino emissions. Such multi-messenger observations have a transformational impact on fundamental physics, nuclear matter, astrophysics, and gravity. It was first witnessed in 2017 with the detection of the binary neutron star (BNS) merger GW170817. However, searching for BNS signals in real-time in the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) GW detectors presents a computational challenge, as the data streaming out must be matched against $\sim$ million reference waveforms, which requires up to a thousand CPU cores. We present a different approach using neural networks to learn the presence of a signal in the data. Our algorithm, called Aframe, was deployed in the LVK's fourth observing run and was the first artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled search to detect multiple binary black holes (BBHs) live. In this work, we demonstrate that the approach extends to the lower-mass BNS regime, and is the first AI-enabled search that achieves sensitivity comparable to matched-filter pipelines at lower computational and latency costs. The challenge of the longer-duration BNS signals is addressed by heterodyning the data, following which the network architecture used for BBHs is sufficient to distinguish signal versus background. We also show that this analysis requires a single non-flagship GPU for online deployment. Furthermore, the design and adoption of inference-as-a-service tools allow rapid offline analysis using a distributed pool of GPU resources. Hence, aside from the use case of rapid online data analysis, we also establish the use of Aframe for efficient archival data analysis.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2026

AI Agents Can Already Autonomously Perform Experimental High Energy Physics

Large language model-based AI agents are now able to autonomously execute substantial portions of a high energy physics (HEP) analysis pipeline with minimal expert-curated input. Given access to a HEP dataset, an execution framework, and a corpus of prior experimental literature, we find that Claude Code succeeds in automating all stages of a typical analysis: event selection, background estimation, uncertainty quantification, statistical inference, and paper drafting. We argue that the experimental HEP community is underestimating the current capabilities of these systems, and that most proposed agentic workflows are too narrowly scoped or scaffolded to specific analysis structures. We present a proof-of-concept framework, Just Furnish Context (JFC), that integrates autonomous analysis agents with literature-based knowledge retrieval and multi-agent review, and show that this is sufficient to plan, execute, and document a credible high energy physics analysis. We demonstrate this by conducting analyses on open data from ALEPH, DELPHI, and CMS to perform electroweak, QCD, and Higgs boson measurements. We present two of those results in a condensed short paper form -- a CMS Run1 Open Data $H\to \tau^+\tau^-$ to demonstrate performance on a well-established result, and the first Lund plane measurement on LEP data -- a genuinely novel result and, to our knowledge, the first produced autonomously by an AI agent. Rather than replacing physicists, these tools promise to offload the repetitive technical burden of analysis code development, freeing researchers to focus on physics insight, truly novel method development, and rigorous validation. Given these developments, we advocate for new strategies for how the community trains students, organizes analysis efforts, and allocates human expertise.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2026

Machine Learning on Heterogeneous, Edge, and Quantum Hardware for Particle Physics (ML-HEQUPP)

The next generation of particle physics experiments will face a new era of challenges in data acquisition, due to unprecedented data rates and volumes along with extreme environments and operational constraints. Harnessing this data for scientific discovery demands real-time inference and decision-making, intelligent data reduction, and efficient processing architectures beyond current capabilities. Crucial to the success of this experimental paradigm are several emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), silicon microelectronics, and the advent of quantum algorithms and processing. Their intersection includes areas of research such as low-power and low-latency devices for edge computing, heterogeneous accelerator systems, reconfigurable hardware, novel codesign and synthesis strategies, readout for cryogenic or high-radiation environments, and analog computing. This white paper presents a community-driven vision to identify and prioritize research and development opportunities in hardware-based ML systems and corresponding physics applications, contributing towards a successful transition to the new data frontier of fundamental science.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2026

Ultrafast On-Chip Online Learning via Spline Locality in Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

Ultrafast online learning is essential for high-frequency systems, such as controls for quantum computing and nuclear fusion, where adaptation must occur on sub-microsecond timescales. Meeting these requirements demands low-latency, fixed-precision computation under strict memory constraints, a regime in which conventional Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLPs) are both inefficient and numerically unstable. We identify key properties of Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs) that align with these constraints. Specifically, we show that: (i) KAN updates exploiting B-spline locality are sparse, enabling superior on-chip resource scaling, and (ii) KANs are inherently robust to fixed-point quantization. By implementing fixed-point online training on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), a representative platform for on-chip computation, we demonstrate that KAN-based online learners are significantly more efficient and expressive than MLPs across a range of low-latency and resource-constrained tasks. To our knowledge, this work is the first to demonstrate model-free online learning at sub-microsecond latencies.

cs.AR↗

arXiv2025

KANEL\'E: Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks for Efficient LUT-based Evaluation

Low-latency, resource-efficient neural network inference on FPGAs is essential for applications demanding real-time capability and low power. Lookup table (LUT)-based neural networks are a common solution, combining strong representational power with efficient FPGA implementation. In this work, we introduce KANEL\'E, a framework that exploits the unique properties of Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs) for FPGA deployment. Unlike traditional multilayer perceptrons (MLPs), KANs employ learnable one-dimensional splines with fixed domains as edge activations, a structure naturally suited to discretization and efficient LUT mapping. We present the first systematic design flow for implementing KANs on FPGAs, co-optimizing training with quantization and pruning to enable compact, high-throughput, and low-latency KAN architectures. Our results demonstrate up to a 2700x speedup and orders of magnitude resource savings compared to prior KAN-on-FPGA approaches. Moreover, KANEL\'E matches or surpasses other LUT-based architectures on widely used benchmarks, particularly for tasks involving symbolic or physical formulas, while balancing resource usage across FPGA hardware. Finally, we showcase the versatility of the framework by extending it to real-time, power-efficient control systems.

cs.AR↗

arXiv2025

SparsePixels: Efficient Convolution for Sparse Data on FPGAs

Inference of standard convolutional neural networks (CNNs) on FPGAs often incurs high latency and a long initiation interval due to the deep nested loops required to densely convolve every input pixel regardless of its feature value. However, input features can be spatially sparse in some image data, where semantic information may occupy only a small fraction of the pixels and most computation would be wasted on empty regions. In this work, we introduce SparsePixels, a framework that implements sparse convolution on FPGAs by selectively retaining and computing on a small subset of active input pixels while ignoring the rest, reducing the per-layer compute from $O(HWK^2C_{\text{in}}C_{\text{out}})$ to $O(n^2C_{\text{in}}C_{\text{out}})$ and the storage from $O(HWC)$ to $O(nC)$ when $n^2\ll HW$. Because computation always runs over a single pre-specified pixel budget that is frozen at synthesis, the inference latency is data-independent and constant at runtime. We show that, for identifying neutrino interactions in naturally sparse LArTPC images with 4k pixels, a standard CNN with a compact size of 4k parameters incurs an inference latency of 48.665 $\mu$s on an FPGA, whereas a sparse CNN of the same base architecture, computing on less than 1% of the input pixels, achieves a $\times 73$ speedup to 0.665 $\mu$s with resource utilization well within on-chip budgets, trading only a small percent-level performance loss. This work aims to benefit future algorithm development for efficient data readout in modern experiments with strict latency requirements of microseconds or below.

cs.AR↗

arXiv2025

hls4ml: A Flexible, Open-Source Platform for Deep Learning Acceleration on Reconfigurable Hardware

We present hls4ml, a free and open-source platform that translates machine learning (ML) models from modern deep learning frameworks into high-level synthesis (HLS) code that can be integrated into full designs for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) or application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). With its flexible and modular design, hls4ml supports a large number of deep learning frameworks and can target HLS compilers from several vendors, including Vitis HLS, Intel oneAPI and Catapult HLS. Together with a wider eco-system for software-hardware co-design, hls4ml has enabled the acceleration of ML inference in a wide range of commercial and scientific applications where low latency, resource usage, and power consumption are critical. In this paper, we describe the structure and functionality of the hls4ml platform. The overarching design considerations for the generated HLS code are discussed, together with selected performance results.

cs.AR↗

arXiv2025

Microseismic Noise Mitigation with Machine Learning for Advanced LIGO

The unprecedented sensitivity of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, which enables the detection of distant astrophysical sources, also renders the detectors highly susceptible to low-frequency ground motion. Persistent microseisms in the 0.1-0.3 Hz band couple into the instruments, degrade lock stability, and contribute substantially to detector downtime during observing runs. The multi-stage seismic isolation system has achieved remarkable success in mitigating such disturbances through active feedback control, yet residual platform motion remains a key factor limiting low-frequency sensitivity and duty cycle. Further reduction of this residual motion is therefore critical for improving the long-term stability and overall astrophysical reach of the observatories. In this work, we develop a data-driven approach that uses machine learning to model and suppress residual seismic motion within the isolation system. Ground and platform sensor data from the detectors are used to train a neural network that predicts platform motion driven by microseismic activity. When incorporated into the control scheme, the network's predictions yield up to an order-of-magnitude reduction in residual motion compared to conventional linear filtering methods, revealing that nonlinear couplings play a significant role in limiting current isolation performance. These results demonstrate that machine-learning-based control can provide a powerful new pathway for enhancing active seismic isolation, improving lock robustness, and extending the low-frequency observational capabilities of gravitational-wave detectors.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2025

Sparse, self-organizing ensembles of local kernels detect rare statistical anomalies

Modern artificial intelligence has revolutionized our ability to extract rich and versatile data representations across scientific disciplines. Yet, the statistical properties of these representations remain poorly controlled, causing misspecified anomaly detection (AD) methods to falter. Weak or rare signals can remain hidden within the apparent regularity of normal data, creating a gap in our ability to detect and interpret anomalies. We examine this gap and identify a set of structural desiderata for detection methods operating under minimal prior information: sparsity, to enforce parsimony; locality, to preserve geometric sensitivity; and competition, to promote efficient allocation of model capacity. These principles define a class of self-organizing local kernels that adaptively partition the representation space around regions of statistical imbalance. As an instantiation of these principles, we introduce SparKer, a sparse ensemble of Gaussian kernels trained within a semi-supervised Neyman--Pearson framework to locally model the likelihood ratio between a sample that may contain anomalies and a nominal, anomaly-free reference. We provide theoretical insights into the mechanisms that drive detection and self-organization in the proposed model, and demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach on realistic high-dimensional problems of scientific discovery, open-world novelty detection, intrusion detection, and generative-model validation. Our applications span both the natural- and computer-science domains. We demonstrate that ensembles containing only a handful of kernels can identify statistically significant anomalous locations within representation spaces of thousands of dimensions, underscoring both the interpretability, efficiency and scalability of the proposed approach.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

AutoSciDACT: Automated Scientific Discovery through Contrastive Embedding and Hypothesis Testing

Novelty detection in large scientific datasets faces two key challenges: the noisy and high-dimensional nature of experimental data, and the necessity of making statistically robust statements about any observed outliers. While there is a wealth of literature on anomaly detection via dimensionality reduction, most methods do not produce outputs compatible with quantifiable claims of scientific discovery. In this work we directly address these challenges, presenting the first step towards a unified pipeline for novelty detection adapted for the rigorous statistical demands of science. We introduce AutoSciDACT (Automated Scientific Discovery with Anomalous Contrastive Testing), a general-purpose pipeline for detecting novelty in scientific data. AutoSciDACT begins by creating expressive low-dimensional data representations using a contrastive pre-training, leveraging the abundance of high-quality simulated data in many scientific domains alongside expertise that can guide principled data augmentation strategies. These compact embeddings then enable an extremely sensitive machine learning-based two-sample test using the New Physics Learning Machine (NPLM) framework, which identifies and statistically quantifies deviations in observed data relative to a reference distribution (null hypothesis). We perform experiments across a range of astronomical, physical, biological, image, and synthetic datasets, demonstrating strong sensitivity to small injections of anomalous data across all domains.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

Likelihood-free inference for gravitational-wave data analysis and public alerts

Rapid and reliable detection and dissemination of source parameter estimation data products from gravitational-wave events, especially sky localization, is critical for maximizing the potential of multi-messenger astronomy. Machine learning based detection and parameter estimation algorithms are emerging as production ready alternatives to traditional approaches. Here, we report validation studies of AMPLFI, a likelihood-free inference solution to low-latency parameter estimation of binary black holes. We use simulated signals added into data from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA's (LVK's) third observing run (O3) to compare sky localization performance with BAYESTAR, the algorithm currently in production for rapid sky localization of candidates from matched-filter pipelines. We demonstrate sky localization performance, measured by searched area and volume, to be equivalent with BAYESTAR. We show accurate reconstruction of source parameters with uncertainties for use distributing low-latency coarse-grained chirp mass information. In addition, we analyze several candidate events reported by the LVK in the third gravitational-wave transient catalog (GWTC-3) and show consistency with the LVK's analysis. Altogether, we demonstrate AMPLFI's ability to produce data products for low-latency public alerts.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2025

The Future of Artificial Intelligence and the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (AI+MPS)

This community paper developed out of the NSF Workshop on the Future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Mathematical and Physics Sciences (MPS), which was held in March 2025 with the goal of understanding how the MPS domains (Astronomy, Chemistry, Materials Research, Mathematical Sciences, and Physics) can best capitalize on, and contribute to, the future of AI. We present here a summary and snapshot of the MPS community's perspective, as of Spring/Summer 2025, in a rapidly developing field. The link between AI and MPS is becoming increasingly inextricable; now is a crucial moment to strengthen the link between AI and Science by pursuing a strategy that proactively and thoughtfully leverages the potential of AI for scientific discovery and optimizes opportunities to impact the development of AI by applying concepts from fundamental science. To achieve this, we propose activities and strategic priorities that: (1) enable AI+MPS research in both directions; (2) build up an interdisciplinary community of AI+MPS researchers; and (3) foster education and workforce development in AI for MPS researchers and students. We conclude with a summary of suggested priorities for funding agencies, educational institutions, and individual researchers to help position the MPS community to be a leader in, and take full advantage of, the transformative potential of AI+MPS.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2025

SuperSONIC: Cloud-Native Infrastructure for ML Inferencing

The increasing computational demand from growing data rates and complex machine learning (ML) algorithms in large-scale scientific experiments has driven the adoption of the Services for Optimized Network Inference on Coprocessors (SONIC) approach. SONIC accelerates ML inference by offloading it to local or remote coprocessors to optimize resource utilization. Leveraging its portability to different types of coprocessors, SONIC enhances data processing and model deployment efficiency for cutting-edge research in high energy physics (HEP) and multi-messenger astrophysics (MMA). We developed the SuperSONIC project, a scalable server infrastructure for SONIC, enabling the deployment of computationally intensive tasks to Kubernetes clusters equipped with graphics processing units (GPUs). Using NVIDIA Triton Inference Server, SuperSONIC decouples client workflows from server infrastructure, standardizing communication, optimizing throughput, load balancing, and monitoring. SuperSONIC has been successfully deployed for the CMS and ATLAS experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the IceCube Neutrino Observatory (IceCube), and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and tested on Kubernetes clusters at Purdue University, the National Research Platform (NRP), and the University of Chicago. SuperSONIC addresses the challenges of the Cloud-native era by providing a reusable, configurable framework that enhances the efficiency of accelerator-based inference deployment across diverse scientific domains and industries.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2025

A machine learning-enabled search for binary black hole mergers in LIGO-Virgo-KAGRAs third observing run

We conduct a search for stellar-mass binary black hole mergers in gravitational-wave data collected by the LIGO detectors during the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) third observing run (O3). Our search uses a machine learning (ML) based method, Aframe, an alternative to traditional matched filtering search techniques. The O3 observing run has been analyzed by the LVK collaboration, producing GWTC-3, the most recent catalog installment which has been made publicly available in 2021. Various groups outside the LVK have re-analyzed O3 data using both traditional and ML-based approaches. Here, we identify 38 candidates with probability of astrophysical origin ($p_\mathrm{astro}$) greater than 0.5, which were previously reported in GWTC-3. This is comparable to the number of candidates reported by individual matched-filter searches. In addition, we compare Aframe candidates with catalogs from research groups outside of the LVK, identifying three candidates with $p_\mathrm{astro} > 0.5$. No previously un-reported candidates are identified by Aframe. This work demonstrates that Aframe, and ML based searches more generally, are useful companions to matched filtering pipelines.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2025

Building Machine Learning Challenges for Anomaly Detection in Science

Scientific discoveries are often made by finding a pattern or object that was not predicted by the known rules of science. Oftentimes, these anomalous events or objects that do not conform to the norms are an indication that the rules of science governing the data are incomplete, and something new needs to be present to explain these unexpected outliers. The challenge of finding anomalies can be confounding since it requires codifying a complete knowledge of the known scientific behaviors and then projecting these known behaviors on the data to look for deviations. When utilizing machine learning, this presents a particular challenge since we require that the model not only understands scientific data perfectly but also recognizes when the data is inconsistent and out of the scope of its trained behavior. In this paper, we present three datasets aimed at developing machine learning-based anomaly detection for disparate scientific domains covering astrophysics, genomics, and polar science. We present the different datasets along with a scheme to make machine learning challenges around the three datasets findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). Furthermore, we present an approach that generalizes to future machine learning challenges, enabling the possibility of large, more compute-intensive challenges that can ultimately lead to scientific discovery.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

Performance measurements of the electromagnetic calorimeter and readout electronics system for the DarkQuest experiment

This paper presents performance measurements of a new readout electronics system based on silicon photomultipliers for the PHENIX electromagnetic calorimeter. Installation of the lead-scintillator Shashlik style calorimeter into the SeaQuest/SpinQuest spectrometer has been proposed to broaden the experiment's dark sector search program, an upgrade known as DarkQuest. The calorimeter and electronics system were subjected to testing and calibration at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility. Detailed studies of the energy response and resolution, as well as particle identification capabilities, were performed. The background rate in the actual experimental environment was also examined. The system is found to be well-suited for a dark sector search program on the Fermilab 120 GeV proton beamline.

physics.ins-det↗