'Deep learning' makes search for exotic particles easier

UCI researchers develop computing techniques that could aid hunt for Higgs bosons

2014-07-02

(Press-News.org) Irvine, Calif. — Fully automated "deep learning" by computers greatly improves the odds of discovering particles such as the Higgs boson, beating even veteran physicists' abilities, according to findings by UC Irvine researchers published today in the journal Nature Communications.

"We are thrilled with the publication of our work," said co-author Pierre Baldi, Chancellor's Professor of computer science, "and even more so with the hope that deep learning may help solve fundamental open questions about the nature of matter, gravity and the origin of the universe."

Baldi, along with computer science Ph.D. student Peter Sadowski and associate professor of physics & astronomy Daniel Whiteson, found quicker, more efficient ways to analyze data obtained from particle accelerators/colliders to better detect rare particles.

The Higgs boson – first theorized in 1964 and whose existence was finally confirmed in 2012 at the massive, underground Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland – could help explain why some particles have mass, among other primary questions of physics. Finding these particles requires sorting out relevant data from huge amounts of background noise; machine learning techniques are already used in analyzing these sets of "big data."

"Machine learning is a branch of computer science where, rather than computers being programmed to do a difficult task, computers learn automatically from examples," Baldi explained. "It's very difficult to write from scratch a program that can recognize elephants in images – or Higgs bosons in collider data. But we can provide to the computer many examples of images with and without elephants, or accelerator data with and without Higgs bosons, and let the computer learn automatically from these examples."

Currently, physicists devise by hand mathematical formulas that they apply to the data to derive the features they're looking for, which are then fed to machine learning programs. By employing recent advances in deep learning, in which computers learn automatically at multiple processing levels, the UCI team eliminated the need for the time-consuming manual creation of those formulas in the search for these fleeting particles – which don't even exist in our universe under normal conditions.

"These new, smarter deep learning networks have shown themselves to be better at finding hints of new particles than past machine learning methods – and than physicists with years of experience," Whiteson said. "They don't need any help from human insight, achieving a level of automatic learning which has been a long-standing goal in high-energy physics."

In computer experiments using carefully structured simulated data, the UCI researchers' methods resulted in a statistically significant 8 percent increase in the detection of these particles.

The techniques could be employed in experiments scheduled for 2015 at the Large Hadron Collider, Baldi said.

INFORMATION: About the University of California, Irvine: Located in coastal Orange County, near a thriving employment hub in one of the nation's safest cities, UC Irvine was founded in 1965. One of only 62 members of the Association of American Universities, it's ranked first among U.S. universities under 50 years old by the London-based Times Higher Education. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Under the leadership of Interim Chancellor Howard Gillman, UC Irvine has more than 28,000 students and offers 192 degree programs. It's Orange County's second-largest employer, contributing $4.3 billion annually to the local economy.

Media access: UC Irvine maintains an online directory of faculty available as experts to the media at today.uci.edu/resources/experts.php. Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UC Irvine faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UC Irvine news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at communications.uci.edu/for-journalists. NOTE TO EDITORS: CARTOON VIDEO AVAILABLE AT http://vimeo.com/41038445

Contact: Janet Wilson
949-824-3969
janethw@uci.edu

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Superconducting-silicon qubits

2014-07-02

Theorists propose a way to make superconducting quantum devices such as Josephson junctions and qubits, atom-by-atom, inside a silicon crystal. Such systems could combine the most promising aspects of silicon spin qubits with the flexibility of superconducting circuits. The researcher's results have now been published in Nature Communications (1). High quality silicon is one of the historical foundations of modern computing. But it is also promising for quantum information technology. In particular, electron and nuclear spins in pure silicon crystals have been measured ...

From despair to repair: Dramatic decline of Caribbean corals can be reversed

2014-07-02

Gland, Switzerland – With only about one-sixth of the original coral cover left, most Caribbean coral reefs may disappear in the next 20 years, primarily due to the loss of grazers in the region, according to the latest report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The report, Status and Trends of Caribbean Coral Reefs: 1970-2012, is the most detailed and comprehensive study of its kind published to date – the result of the work of 90 experts over ...

License plate readers are important police tool, but hurdles remain, study finds

2014-07-02

Systems that automatically read automobile license plates have the potential to save police investigative time and increase safety, but law enforcement officials must address issues related to staffing, compatibility and privacy before the technology can reach its full potential, according to a new RAND Corporation report. As part of efforts to promote innovation in law enforcement, many of the first generation license plate reader systems were purchased with federal and state grants. As these funding streams can be inconsistent, law enforcement agencies are – or will ...

A 'magic moment' for unwed parents

2014-07-02

DURHAM, N.C. -- If unwed parents are going to get married, the best window of opportunity for that union seems to be before their child turns 3, says a new study from Duke University. But patterns vary greatly by race, with more African-American mothers marrying much later than mothers of other races or ethnicities. Federal policies have often presumed that unmarried parents will be most receptive to marriage right after a baby's birth, a period that has been dubbed the "magic moment." The new study is the first to test that assumption, said author Christina Gibson-Davis. ...

How do ants get around? Ultra-sensitive machines measure their every step…

2014-07-02

How do ants manage to move so nimbly whilst coordinating three pairs of legs and a behind that weighs up to 60% of their body mass? German scientists have recently developed a device that may reveal the answer. Measuring the forces generated by single limbs is vital to understanding the energetics of animal locomotion. However, with very small animals such as insects, this becomes problematic. Dr Reinhardt (Friedrich-Schiller University) used an elastic polycarbonate material to produce a miniature force plate. Springs arranged at right angles to each other enabled forces ...

Locusts harness the sun to get their optimum diet

2014-07-02

If you are a locust, the most nutritious plant to eat depends on the ambient temperature. Scientists at the University of Sydney, Australia, have discovered that locusts choose their food and then where they digest it according to how hot it is. Dr Fiona Clissold, who led the study, explains why temperature has such a large influence on insect diets. "Whilst an insect's metabolic rate increases exponentially with temperature, the rate at which locusts absorb protein and carbohydrate from different plants does not increase in step with temperature. As a result, nutrient ...

Smarter than you think: Fish can remember where they were fed 12 days later

2014-07-02

It is popularly believed that fish have a memory span of only 30 seconds. Canadian scientists, however, have demonstrated that this is far from true – in fact, fish can remember context and associations up to twelve days later. The researchers studied African Cichlids (Labidochromis caeruleus), a popular aquarium species. These fish demonstrate many complex behaviours, including aggression, causing the scientists to predict that they could be capable of advanced memory tasks. Each fish was trained to enter a particular zone of the aquarium to receive a food reward, with ...

A sheep's early life experiences can shape behavior in later life

2014-07-02

New research has found that a sheep's experiences soon after birth can shape its later behaviour and also that of its offspring. The study led by academics from the University of Bristol's School of Veterinary Sciences and published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters investigated whether early-life experiences can alter behavioural responses to a naturally painful event in adulthood – giving birth – and also affect behaviour of the next generation. The period following birth can be a challenging time for young lambs. They are usually tail-docked without analgesia ...

Patients with severe ME have little or no access to specialist treatment services

2014-07-02

One in three severely affected adults with ME in England have no access to local specialist services, new research has shown. Published in the British Medical Journal Open, the research by the University of Southampton reveals NICE guidelines, which say severely affected patients with ME, otherwise known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), should have access to specialist care, are not being met by many NHS Trusts across England. Over a third of specialist adult ME/CFS services in the NHS provide no service to severely affected patients, and a further 12 per cent of ...

Nature of solids and liquids explored through new pitch drop experiment

2014-07-02

VIDEO: The movie clip shows the bitumen flow from the top camera view, and corresponds to approximately 24 days of real time. Click here for more information. Physicists at Queen Mary University of London have set up a new pitch drop experiment for students to explore the difference between solid and liquids. Known as the 'world's longest experiment', the set up at the University of Queensland was famous for taking ten years for a drop of pitch – a thick, black, sticky ...

'Deep learning' makes search for exotic particles easier

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: