arXiv subjects

Wahid Bhimji

Publications and source records attributed to Wahid Bhimji.

34 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Efficient Probabilistic Inference in the Quest for Physics Beyond the Standard Model

We present a novel probabilistic programming framework that couples directly to existing large-scale simulators through a cross-platform probabilistic execution protocol, which allows general-purpose inference engines to record and control random number draws within simulators in a language-agnostic way. The execution of existing simulators as probabilistic programs enables highly interpretable posterior inference in the structured model defined by the simulator code base. We demonstrate the technique in particle physics, on a scientifically accurate simulation of the tau lepton decay, which is a key ingredient in establishing the properties of the Higgs boson. Inference efficiency is achieved via inference compilation where a deep recurrent neural network is trained to parameterize proposal distributions and control the stochastic simulator in a sequential importance sampling scheme, at a fraction of the computational cost of a Markov chain Monte Carlo baseline.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2020

Optimization of Software on High Performance Computing Platforms for the LUX-ZEPLIN Dark Matter Experiment

High Energy Physics experiments like the LUX-ZEPLIN dark matter experiment face unique challenges when running their computation on High Performance Computing resources. In this paper, we describe some strategies to optimize memory usage of simulation codes with the help of profiling tools. We employed this approach and achieved memory reduction of 10-30\%. While this has been performed in the context of the LZ experiment, it has wider applicability to other HEP experimental codes that face these challenges on modern computer architectures.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2020

The use of Convolutional Neural Networks for signal-background classification in Particle Physics experiments

The success of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) in image classification has prompted efforts to study their use for classifying image data obtained in Particle Physics experiments. Here, we discuss our efforts to apply CNNs to 2D and 3D image data from particle physics experiments to classify signal from background. In this work we present an extensive convolutional neural architecture search, achieving high accuracy for signal/background discrimination for a HEP classification use-case based on simulated data from the Ice Cube neutrino observatory and an ATLAS-like detector. We demonstrate among other things that we can achieve the same accuracy as complex ResNet architectures with CNNs with less parameters, and present comparisons of computational requirements, training and inference times.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2019

Etalumis: Bringing Probabilistic Programming to Scientific Simulators at Scale

Probabilistic programming languages (PPLs) are receiving widespread attention for performing Bayesian inference in complex generative models. However, applications to science remain limited because of the impracticability of rewriting complex scientific simulators in a PPL, the computational cost of inference, and the lack of scalable implementations. To address these, we present a novel PPL framework that couples directly to existing scientific simulators through a cross-platform probabilistic execution protocol and provides Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and deep-learning-based inference compilation (IC) engines for tractable inference. To guide IC inference, we perform distributed training of a dynamic 3DCNN--LSTM architecture with a PyTorch-MPI-based framework on 1,024 32-core CPU nodes of the Cori supercomputer with a global minibatch size of 128k: achieving a performance of 450 Tflop/s through enhancements to PyTorch. We demonstrate a Large Hadron Collider (LHC) use-case with the C++ Sherpa simulator and achieve the largest-scale posterior inference in a Turing-complete PPL.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2019

Machine Learning Templates for QCD Factorization in the Search for Physics Beyond the Standard Model

High-multiplicity all-hadronic final states are an important, but difficult final state for searching for physics beyond the Standard Model. A powerful search method is to look for large jets with accidental substructure due to multiple hard partons falling within a single jet. One way for estimating the background in this search is to exploit an approximate factorization in quantum chromodynamics whereby the jet mass distribution is determined only by its kinematic properties. Traditionally, this approach has been executed using histograms constructed in a background-rich region. We propose a new approach based on Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). These neural network approaches are naturally unbinned and can be readily conditioned on multiple jet properties. In addition to using vanilla GANs for this purpose, a modification to the traditional WGAN approach has been investigated where weight clipping is replaced with a naturally compact set (in this case, the circle). Both the vanilla and modified WGAN approaches significantly outperform the histogram method, especially when modeling the dependence on features not used in the histogram construction. These results can be useful for enhancing the sensitivity of LHC searches to high-multiplicity final states involving many quarks and gluons and serve as a useful benchmark where GANs may have immediate benefit to the HEP community.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

CosmoGAN: creating high-fidelity weak lensing convergence maps using Generative Adversarial Networks

Inferring model parameters from experimental data is a grand challenge in many sciences, including cosmology. This often relies critically on high fidelity numerical simulations, which are prohibitively computationally expensive. The application of deep learning techniques to generative modeling is renewing interest in using high dimensional density estimators as computationally inexpensive emulators of fully-fledged simulations. These generative models have the potential to make a dramatic shift in the field of scientific simulations, but for that shift to happen we need to study the performance of such generators in the precision regime needed for science applications. To this end, in this work we apply Generative Adversarial Networks to the problem of generating weak lensing convergence maps. We show that our generator network produces maps that are described by, with high statistical confidence, the same summary statistics as the fully simulated maps.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2019

Machine Learning in High Energy Physics Community White Paper

Machine learning has been applied to several problems in particle physics research, beginning with applications to high-level physics analysis in the 1990s and 2000s, followed by an explosion of applications in particle and event identification and reconstruction in the 2010s. In this document we discuss promising future research and development areas for machine learning in particle physics. We detail a roadmap for their implementation, software and hardware resource requirements, collaborative initiatives with the data science community, academia and industry, and training the particle physics community in data science. The main objective of the document is to connect and motivate these areas of research and development with the physics drivers of the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider and future neutrino experiments and identify the resource needs for their implementation. Additionally we identify areas where collaboration with external communities will be of great benefit.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2019

A pattern recognition algorithm for quantum annealers

The reconstruction of charged particles will be a key computing challenge for the high-luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) where increased data rates lead to large increases in running time for current pattern recognition algorithms. An alternative approach explored here expresses pattern recognition as a Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) using software and quantum annealing. At track densities comparable with current LHC conditions, our approach achieves physics performance competitive with state-of-the-art pattern recognition algorithms. More research will be needed to achieve comparable performance in HL-LHC conditions, as increasing track density decreases the purity of the QUBO track segment classifier.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2018

A Roadmap for HEP Software and Computing R&D for the 2020s

Particle physics has an ambitious and broad experimental programme for the coming decades. This programme requires large investments in detector hardware, either to build new facilities and experiments, or to upgrade existing ones. Similarly, it requires commensurate investment in the R&D of software to acquire, manage, process, and analyse the shear amounts of data to be recorded. In planning for the HL-LHC in particular, it is critical that all of the collaborating stakeholders agree on the software goals and priorities, and that the efforts complement each other. In this spirit, this white paper describes the R&D activities required to prepare for this software upgrade.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2018

Graph Neural Networks for IceCube Signal Classification

Tasks involving the analysis of geometric (graph- and manifold-structured) data have recently gained prominence in the machine learning community, giving birth to a rapidly developing field of geometric deep learning. In this work, we leverage graph neural networks to improve signal detection in the IceCube neutrino observatory. The IceCube detector array is modeled as a graph, where vertices are sensors and edges are a learned function of the sensors' spatial coordinates. As only a subset of IceCube's sensors is active during a given observation, we note the adaptive nature of our GNN, wherein computation is restricted to the input signal support. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our GNN architecture on a task classifying IceCube events, where it outperforms both a traditional physics-based method as well as classical 3D convolution neural networks.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2017

Improvements to Inference Compilation for Probabilistic Programming in Large-Scale Scientific Simulators

We consider the problem of Bayesian inference in the family of probabilistic models implicitly defined by stochastic generative models of data. In scientific fields ranging from population biology to cosmology, low-level mechanistic components are composed to create complex generative models. These models lead to intractable likelihoods and are typically non-differentiable, which poses challenges for traditional approaches to inference. We extend previous work in "inference compilation", which combines universal probabilistic programming and deep learning methods, to large-scale scientific simulators, and introduce a C++ based probabilistic programming library called CPProb. We successfully use CPProb to interface with SHERPA, a large code-base used in particle physics. Here we describe the technical innovations realized and planned for this library.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2017

Deep Neural Networks for Physics Analysis on low-level whole-detector data at the LHC

There has been considerable recent activity applying deep convolutional neural nets (CNNs) to data from particle physics experiments. Current approaches on ATLAS/CMS have largely focussed on a subset of the calorimeter, and for identifying objects or particular particle types. We explore approaches that use the entire calorimeter, combined with track information, for directly conducting physics analyses: i.e. classifying events as known-physics background or new-physics signals. We use an existing RPV-Supersymmetry analysis as a case study and explore CNNs on multi-channel, high-resolution sparse images: applied on GPU and multi-node CPU architectures (including Knights Landing (KNL) Xeon Phi nodes) on the Cori supercomputer at NERSC.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2017

Deep Learning at 15PF: Supervised and Semi-Supervised Classification for Scientific Data

This paper presents the first, 15-PetaFLOP Deep Learning system for solving scientific pattern classification problems on contemporary HPC architectures. We develop supervised convolutional architectures for discriminating signals in high-energy physics data as well as semi-supervised architectures for localizing and classifying extreme weather in climate data. Our Intelcaffe-based implementation obtains $\sim$2TFLOP/s on a single Cori Phase-II Xeon-Phi node. We use a hybrid strategy employing synchronous node-groups, while using asynchronous communication across groups. We use this strategy to scale training of a single model to $\sim$9600 Xeon-Phi nodes; obtaining peak performance of 11.73-15.07 PFLOP/s and sustained performance of 11.41-13.27 PFLOP/s. At scale, our HEP architecture produces state-of-the-art classification accuracy on a dataset with 10M images, exceeding that achieved by selections on high-level physics-motivated features. Our semi-supervised architecture successfully extracts weather patterns in a 15TB climate dataset. Our results demonstrate that Deep Learning can be optimized and scaled effectively on many-core, HPC systems.

cs.PF↗

arXiv2016

Revealing Fundamental Physics from the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment using Deep Neural Networks

Experiments in particle physics produce enormous quantities of data that must be analyzed and interpreted by teams of physicists. This analysis is often exploratory, where scientists are unable to enumerate the possible types of signal prior to performing the experiment. Thus, tools for summarizing, clustering, visualizing and classifying high-dimensional data are essential. In this work, we show that meaningful physical content can be revealed by transforming the raw data into a learned high-level representation using deep neural networks, with measurements taken at the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment as a case study. We further show how convolutional deep neural networks can provide an effective classification filter with greater than 97% accuracy across different classes of physics events, significantly better than other machine learning approaches.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2016

PANDA: Extreme Scale Parallel K-Nearest Neighbor on Distributed Architectures

Computing $k$-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) is one of the core kernels used in many machine learning, data mining and scientific computing applications. Although kd-tree based $O(\log n)$ algorithms have been proposed for computing KNN, due to its inherent sequentiality, linear algorithms are being used in practice. This limits the applicability of such methods to millions of data points, with limited scalability for Big Data analytics challenges in the scientific domain. In this paper, we present parallel and highly optimized kd-tree based KNN algorithms (both construction and querying) suitable for distributed architectures. Our algorithm includes novel approaches for pruning search space and improving load balancing and partitioning among nodes and threads. Using TB-sized datasets from three science applications: astrophysics, plasma physics, and particle physics, we show that our implementation can construct kd-tree of 189 billion particles in 48 seconds on utilizing $\sim$50,000 cores. We also demonstrate computation of KNN of 19 billion queries in 12 seconds. We demonstrate almost linear speedup both for shared and distributed memory computers. Our algorithms outperforms earlier implementations by more than order of magnitude; thereby radically improving the applicability of our implementation to state-of-the-art Big Data analytics problems. In addition, we showcase performance and scalability on the recently released Intel Xeon Phi processor showing that our algorithm scales well even on massively parallel architectures.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2011

Establishing Applicability of SSDs to LHC Tier-2 Hardware Configuration

Solid State Disk technologies are increasingly replacing high-speed hard disks as the storage technology in high-random-I/O environments. There are several potentially I/O bound services within the typical LHC Tier-2 - in the back-end, with the trend towards many-core architectures continuing, worker nodes running many single-threaded jobs and storage nodes delivering many simultaneous files can both exhibit I/O limited efficiency. We estimate the effectiveness of affordable SSDs in the context of worker nodes, on a large Tier-2 production setup using both low level tools and real LHC I/O intensive data analysis jobs comparing and contrasting with high performance spinning disk based solutions. We consider the applicability of each solution in the context of its price/performance metrics, with an eye on the pragmatic issues facing Tier-2 provision and upgrades

cs.DC↗