Gia-Wei Chern

STR-EL
h-index33
27papers
197citations
Novelty46%
AI Score52

27 Papers

STR-ELMar 6, 2023
Machine learning for phase ordering dynamics of charge density waves

Chen Cheng, Sheng Zhang, Gia-Wei Chern

We present a machine learning (ML) framework for large-scale dynamical simulations of charge density wave (CDW) states. The charge modulation in a CDW state is often accompanied by a concomitant structural distortion, and the adiabatic evolution of a CDW order is governed by the dynamics of the lattice distortion. Calculation of the electronic contribution to the driving forces, however, is computationally very expensive for large systems. Assuming the principle of locality for electron systems, a neural-network model is developed to accurately and efficiently predict local electronic forces with input from neighborhood configurations. Importantly, the ML model makes possible a linear complexity algorithm for dynamical simulations of CDWs. As a demonstration, we apply our approach to investigate the phase ordering dynamics of the Holstein model, a canonical system of CDW order. Our large-scale simulations uncover an intriguing growth of the CDW domains that deviates significantly from the expected Allen-Cahn law for phase ordering of Ising-type order parameter field. This anomalous domain-growth could be attributed to the complex structure of domain-walls in this system. Our work highlights the promising potential of ML-based force-field models for dynamical simulations of functional electronic materials.

STR-ELApr 12, 2022
Machine learning predictions for local electronic properties of disordered correlated electron systems

Yi-Hsuan Liu, Sheng Zhang, Puhan Zhang et al.

We present a scalable machine learning (ML) model to predict local electronic properties such as on-site electron number and double occupation for disordered correlated electron systems. Our approach is based on the locality principle, or the nearsightedness nature, of many-electron systems, which means local electronic properties depend mainly on the immediate environment. A ML model is developed to encode this complex dependence of local quantities on the neighborhood. We demonstrate our approach using the square-lattice Anderson-Hubbard model, which is a paradigmatic system for studying the interplay between Mott transition and Anderson localization. We develop a lattice descriptor based on group-theoretical method to represent the on-site random potentials within a finite region. The resultant feature variables are used as input to a multi-layer fully connected neural network, which is trained from datasets of variational Monte Carlo (VMC) simulations on small systems. We show that the ML predictions agree reasonably well with the VMC data. Our work underscores the promising potential of ML methods for multi-scale modeling of correlated electron systems.

15.3STR-ELApr 13
Machine-learning modeling of magnetization dynamics in quasi-equilibrium and driven metallic spin systems

Gia-Wei Chern, Yunhao Fan, Sheng Zhang et al.

We review recent advances in machine-learning (ML) force-field methods for large-scale Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) simulations of metallic spin systems. We generalize the Behler-Parrinello (BP) ML architecture -- originally developed for quantum molecular dynamics -- to construct scalable and transferable ML models capable of capturing the intricate dependence of electron-mediated exchange fields on the local magnetic environment characteristic of itinerant magnets. A central ingredient of this framework is the implementation of symmetry-aware magnetic descriptors based on group-theoretical bispectrum formalisms. Leveraging these ML force fields, LLG simulations faithfully reproduce hallmark non-collinear magnetic orders -- such as the $120^\circ$ and tetrahedral states -- on the triangular lattice, and successfully capture the complex spin textures emerging in the mixed-phase states of a square-lattice double-exchange model under thermal quench. We further discuss a generalized potential theory that extends the BP formalism to incorporate both conservative and nonconservative electronic torques, thereby enabling ML models to learn nonequilibrium exchange fields from computationally demanding microscopic approaches such as nonequilibrium Green's-function techniques. This extension yields quantitatively accurate predictions of voltage-driven domain-wall motion and establishes a foundation for quantum-accurate, multiscale modeling of nonequilibrium spin dynamics and spintronic functionalities.

STAT-MECHApr 11, 2023
Machine learning for structure-property relationships: Scalability and limitations

Zhongzheng Tian, Sheng Zhang, Gia-Wei Chern

We present a scalable machine learning (ML) framework for predicting intensive properties and particularly classifying phases of many-body systems. Scalability and transferability are central to the unprecedented computational efficiency of ML methods. In general, linear-scaling computation can be achieved through the divide and conquer approach, and the locality of physical properties is key to partitioning the system into sub-domains that can be solved separately. Based on the locality assumption, ML model is developed for the prediction of intensive properties of a finite-size block. Predictions of large-scale systems can then be obtained by averaging results of the ML model from randomly sampled blocks of the system. We show that the applicability of this approach depends on whether the block-size of the ML model is greater than the characteristic length scale of the system. In particular, in the case of phase identification across a critical point, the accuracy of the ML prediction is limited by the diverging correlation length. The two-dimensional Ising model is used to demonstrate the proposed framework. We obtain an intriguing scaling relation between the prediction accuracy and the ratio of ML block size over the spin-spin correlation length. Implications for practical applications are also discussed.

STR-ELMar 2
Graph neural network force fields for adiabatic dynamics of lattice Hamiltonians

Yunhao Fan, Gia-Wei Chern

Scalable and symmetry-consistent force-field models are essential for extending quantum-accurate simulations to large spatiotemporal scales. While descriptor-based neural networks can incorporate lattice symmetries through carefully engineered features, we show that graph neural networks (GNNs) provide a conceptually simpler and more unified alternative in which discrete lattice translation and point-group symmetries are enforced directly through local message passing and weight sharing. We develop a GNN-based force-field framework for the adiabatic dynamics of lattice Hamiltonians and demonstrate it for the semiclassical Holstein model. Trained on exact-diagonalization data, the GNN achieves high force accuracy, strict linear scaling with system size, and direct transferability to large lattices. Enabled by this scalability, we perform large-scale Langevin simulations of charge-density-wave ordering following thermal quenches, revealing dynamical scaling and anomalously slow sub--Allen--Cahn coarsening. These results establish GNNs as an elegant and efficient architecture for symmetry-aware, large-scale dynamical simulations of correlated lattice systems.

DIS-NNNov 28, 2023
Machine learning force-field models for metallic spin glass

Menglin Shi, Sheng Zhang, Gia-Wei Chern

Metallic spin glass systems, such as dilute magnetic alloys, are characterized by randomly distributed local moments coupled to each other through a long-range electron-mediated effective interaction. We present a scalable machine learning (ML) framework for dynamical simulations of metallic spin glasses. A Behler-Parrinello type neural-network model, based on the principle of locality, is developed to accurately and efficiently predict electron-induced local magnetic fields that drive the spin dynamics. A crucial component of the ML model is a proper symmetry-invariant representation of local magnetic environment which is direct input to the neural net. We develop such a magnetic descriptor by incorporating the spin degrees of freedom into the atom-centered symmetry function methods which are widely used in ML force-field models for quantum molecular dynamics. We apply our approach to study the relaxation dynamics of an amorphous generalization of the s-d model. Our work highlights the promising potential of ML models for large-scale dynamical modeling of itinerant magnets with quenched disorder.

STR-ELJan 7
Equivariant Neural Networks for Force-Field Models of Lattice Systems

Yunhao Fan, Gia-Wei Chern

Machine-learning (ML) force fields enable large-scale simulations with near-first-principles accuracy at substantially reduced computational cost. Recent work has extended ML force-field approaches to adiabatic dynamical simulations of condensed-matter lattice models with coupled electronic and structural or magnetic degrees of freedom. However, most existing formulations rely on hand-crafted, symmetry-aware descriptors, whose construction is often system-specific and can hinder generality and transferability across different lattice Hamiltonians. Here we introduce a symmetry-preserving framework based on equivariant neural networks (ENNs) that provides a general, data-driven mapping from local configurations of dynamical variables to the associated on-site forces in a lattice Hamiltonian. In contrast to ENN architectures developed for molecular systems -- where continuous Euclidean symmetries dominate -- our approach aims to embed the discrete point-group and internal symmetries intrinsic to lattice models directly into the neural-network representation of the force field. As a proof of principle, we construct an ENN-based force-field model for the adiabatic dynamics of the Holstein Hamiltonian on a square lattice, a canonical system for electron-lattice physics. The resulting ML-enabled large-scale dynamical simulations faithfully capture mesoscale evolution of the symmetry-breaking phase, illustrating the utility of lattice-equivariant architectures for linking microscopic electronic processes to emergent dynamical behavior in condensed-matter lattice systems.

STR-ELJan 12
Machine learning nonequilibrium phase transitions in charge-density wave insulators

Yunhao Fan, Sheng Zhang, Gia-Wei Chern

Nonequilibrium electronic forces play a central role in voltage-driven phase transitions but are notoriously expensive to evaluate in dynamical simulations. Here we develop a machine learning framework for adiabatic lattice dynamics coupled to nonequilibrium electrons, and demonstrate it for a gating induced insulator to metal transition out of a charge density wave state in the Holstein model. Although exact electronic forces can be obtained from nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) calculations, their high computational cost renders long time dynamical simulations prohibitively expensive. By exploiting the locality of the electronic response, we train a neural network to directly predict instantaneous local electronic forces from the lattice configuration, thereby bypassing repeated NEGF calculations during time evolution. When combined with Brownian dynamics, the resulting machine learning force field quantitatively reproduces domain wall motion and nonequilibrium phase transition dynamics obtained from full NEGF simulations, while achieving orders of magnitude gains in computational efficiency. Our results establish direct force learning as an efficient and accurate approach for simulating nonequilibrium lattice dynamics in driven quantum materials.

MTRL-SCISep 3, 2024
Machine learning approach for vibronically renormalized electronic band structures

Niraj Aryal, Sheng Zhang, Weiguo Yin et al.

We present a machine learning (ML) method for efficient computation of vibrational thermal expectation values of physical properties from first principles. Our approach is based on the non-perturbative frozen phonon formulation in which stochastic Monte Carlo algorithm is employed to sample configurations of nuclei in a supercell at finite temperatures based on a first-principles phonon model. A deep-learning neural network is trained to accurately predict physical properties associated with sampled phonon configurations, thus bypassing the time-consuming {\em ab initio} calculations. To incorporate the point-group symmetry of the electronic system into the ML model, group-theoretical methods are used to develop a symmetry-invariant descriptor for phonon configurations in the supercell. We apply our ML approach to compute the temperature dependent electronic energy gap of silicon based on density functional theory (DFT). We show that, with less than a hundred DFT calculations for training the neural network model, an order of magnitude larger number of sampling can be achieved for the computation of the vibrational thermal expectation values. Our work highlights the promising potential of ML techniques for finite temperature first-principles electronic structure methods.

COMP-PHJan 27
Transformer Learning of Chaotic Collective Dynamics in Many-Body Systems

Ho Jang, Gia-Wei Chern

Learning reduced descriptions of chaotic many-body dynamics is fundamentally challenging: although microscopic equations are Markovian, collective observables exhibit strong memory and exponential sensitivity to initial conditions and prediction errors. We show that a self-attention-based transformer framework provides an effective approach for modeling such chaotic collective dynamics directly from time-series data. By selectively reweighting long-range temporal correlations, the transformer learns a non-Markovian reduced description that overcomes intrinsic limitations of conventional recurrent architectures. As a concrete demonstration, we study the one-dimensional semiclassical Holstein model, where interaction quenches induce strongly nonlinear and chaotic dynamics of the charge-density-wave order parameter. While pointwise predictions inevitably diverge at long times, the transformer faithfully reproduces the statistical "climate" of the chaos, including temporal correlations and characteristic decay scales. Our results establish self-attention as a powerful mechanism for learning effective reduced dynamics in chaotic many-body systems.

7.1STR-ELMay 5
Graph Neural Networks in the Wilson Loop Representation of Abelian Lattice Gauge Theories

Ali Rayat, Gia-Wei Chern

Local gauge structures play a central role in a wide range of condensed matter systems and synthetic quantum platforms, where they emerge as effective descriptions of strongly correlated phases and engineered dynamics. We introduce a gauge-invariant graph neural network (GNN) architecture for Abelian lattice gauge models, in which symmetry is enforced explicitly through local gauge-invariant inputs, such as Wilson loops, and preserved throughout message passing, eliminating redundant gauge degrees of freedom while retaining expressive power. We benchmark the approach on both $\mathbb{Z}_2$ and $\mathrm{U}(1)$ lattice gauge models, achieving accurate predictions of global observables and spatially resolved quantities despite the nonlocal correlations induced by gauge-matter coupling. We further demonstrate that the learned model serves as an efficient surrogate for semiclassical dynamics in $\mathrm{U}(1)$ quantum link models, enabling stable and scalable time evolution without repeated fermionic diagonalization, while faithfully reproducing both local dynamics and statistical correlations. These results establish gauge-invariant message passing as a compact and physically grounded framework for learning and simulating Abelian lattice gauge systems.

10.3STR-ELApr 22
Gauge-Equivariant Graph Neural Networks for Lattice Gauge Theories

Ali Rayat, Yaohang Li, Gia-Wei Chern

Local gauge symmetry underlies fundamental interactions and strongly correlated quantum matter, yet existing machine-learning approaches lack a general, principled framework for learning under site-dependent symmetries, particularly for intrinsically nonlocal observables. Here we introduce a gauge-equivariant graph neural network that embeds non-Abelian symmetry directly into message passing via matrix-valued, gauge-covariant features and symmetry-compatible updates, extending equivariant learning from global to fully local symmetries. In this formulation, message passing implements gauge-covariant transport across the lattice, allowing nonlocal correlations and loop-like structures to emerge naturally from local operations. We validate the approach across pure gauge, gauge-matter, and dynamical regimes, establishing gauge-equivariant message passing as a general paradigm for learning in systems governed by local symmetry.

STR-ELMay 23, 2024
Kinetics of orbital ordering in cooperative Jahn-Teller models: Machine-learning enabled large-scale simulations

Supriyo Ghosh, Sheng Zhang, Chen Cheng et al.

We present a scalable machine learning (ML) force-field model for the adiabatic dynamics of cooperative Jahn-Teller (JT) systems. Large scale dynamical simulations of the JT model also shed light on the orbital ordering dynamics in colossal magnetoresistance manganites. The JT effect in these materials describes the distortion of local oxygen octahedra driven by a coupling to the orbital degrees of freedom of $e_g$ electrons. An effective electron-mediated interaction between the local JT modes leads to a structural transition and the emergence of long-range orbital order at low temperatures. Assuming the principle of locality, a deep-learning neural-network model is developed to accurately and efficiently predict the electron-induced forces that drive the dynamical evolution of JT phonons. A group-theoretical method is utilized to develop a descriptor that incorporates the combined orbital and lattice symmetry into the ML model. Large-scale Langevin dynamics simulations, enabled by the ML force-field models, are performed to investigate the coarsening dynamics of the composite JT distortion and orbital order after a thermal quench. The late-stage coarsening of orbital domains exhibits pronounced freezing behaviors which are likely related to the unusual morphology of the domain structures. Our work highlights a promising avenue for multi-scale dynamical modeling of correlated electron systems.

STR-ELMar 18, 2024
Coarsening of chiral domains in itinerant electron magnets: A machine learning force field approach

Yunhao Fan, Sheng Zhang, Gia-Wei Chern

Frustrated itinerant magnets often exhibit complex noncollinear or noncoplanar magnetic orders which support topological electronic structures. A canonical example is the anomalous quantum Hall state with a chiral spin order stabilized by electron-spin interactions on a triangular lattice. While a long-range magnetic order cannot survive thermal fluctuations in two dimensions, the chiral order which results from the breaking of a discrete Ising symmetry persists even at finite temperatures. We present a scalable machine learning (ML) framework to model the complex electron-mediated spin-spin interactions that stabilize the chiral magnetic domains in a triangular lattice. Large-scale dynamical simulations, enabled by the ML force-field models, are performed to investigate the coarsening of chiral domains after a thermal quench. While the chiral phase is described by a broken $Z_2$ Ising-type symmetry, we find that the characteristic size of chiral domains increases linearly with time, in stark contrast to the expected Allen-Cahn domain growth law for a non-conserved Ising order parameter field. The linear growth of the chiral domains is attributed to the orientational anisotropy of domain boundaries. Our work also demonstrates the promising potential of ML models for large-scale spin dynamics of itinerant magnets.

STR-ELDec 30, 2024
Enhanced coarsening of charge density waves induced by electron correlation: Machine-learning enabled large-scale dynamical simulations

Yang Yang, Chen Cheng, Yunhao Fan et al.

The phase ordering kinetics of emergent orders in correlated electron systems is a fundamental topic in non-equilibrium physics, yet it remains largely unexplored. The intricate interplay between quasiparticles and emergent order-parameter fields could lead to unusual coarsening dynamics that is beyond the standard theories. However, accurate treatment of both quasiparticles and collective degrees of freedom is a multi-scale challenge in dynamical simulations of correlated electrons. Here we leverage modern machine learning (ML) methods to achieve a linear-scaling algorithm for simulating the coarsening of charge density waves (CDWs), one of the fundamental symmetry breaking phases in functional electron materials. We demonstrate our approach on the square-lattice Hubbard-Holstein model and uncover an intriguing enhancement of CDW coarsening which is related to the screening of on-site potential by electron-electron interactions. Our study provides fresh insights into the role of electron correlations in non-equilibrium dynamics and underscores the promise of ML force-field approaches for advancing multi-scale dynamical modeling of correlated electron systems.

STR-ELFeb 20
Machine-learning force-field models for dynamical simulations of metallic magnets

Gia-Wei Chern, Yunhao Fan, Sheng Zhang et al.

We review recent advances in machine learning (ML) force-field methods for Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) simulations of itinerant electron magnets, focusing on scalability and transferability. Built on the principle of locality, a deep neural network model is developed to efficiently and accurately predict the electron-mediated forces governing spin dynamics. Symmetry-aware descriptors constructed through a group-theoretical approach ensure rigorous incorporation of both lattice and spin-rotation symmetries. The framework is demonstrated using the prototypical s-d exchange model widely employed in spintronics. ML-enabled large-scale simulations reveal novel nonequilibrium phenomena, including anomalous coarsening of tetrahedral spin order on the triangular lattice and the freezing of phase separation dynamics in lightly hole-doped, strong-coupling square-lattice systems. These results establish ML force-field frameworks as scalable, accurate, and versatile tools for modeling nonequilibrium spin dynamics in itinerant magnets.

STR-ELNov 25, 2025
Learning Degenerate Manifolds of Frustrated Magnets with Boltzmann Machines

Ho Jang, Jackson C. Glass, Gia-Wei Chern

We show that Restricted Boltzmann Machines (RBMs) provide a flexible generative framework for modeling spin configurations in disordered yet strongly correlated phases of frustrated magnets. As a benchmark, we first demonstrate that an RBM can learn the zero-temperature ground-state manifold of the one-dimensional ANNNI model at its multiphase point, accurately reproducing its characteristic oscillatory and exponentially decaying correlations. We then apply RBMs to kagome spin ice and show that they successfully learn the local ice rules and short-range correlations of the extensively degenerate ice-I manifold. Correlation functions computed from RBM-generated configurations closely match those from direct Monte Carlo simulations. For the partially ordered ice-II phase -- featuring long-range charge order and broken time-reversal symmetry -- accurate modeling requires RBMs with uniform-sign bias fields, mirroring the underlying symmetry breaking. These results highlight the utility of RBMs as generative models for learning constrained and highly frustrated magnetic states.

MTRL-SCISep 15, 2025
Geometric Analysis of Magnetic Labyrinthine Stripe Evolution via U-Net Segmentation

Vinícius Yu Okubo, Kotaro Shimizu, B. S. Shivaran et al.

Labyrinthine stripe patterns are common in many physical systems, yet their lack of long-range order makes quantitative characterization challenging. We investigate the evolution of such patterns in bismuth-doped yttrium iron garnet (Bi:YIG) films subjected to a magnetic field annealing protocol. A U-Net deep learning model, trained with synthetic degradations including additive white Gaussian and Simplex noise, enables robust segmentation of experimental magneto-optical images despite noise and occlusions. Building on this segmentation, we develop a geometric analysis pipeline based on skeletonization, graph mapping, and spline fitting, which quantifies local stripe propagation through length and curvature measurements. Applying this framework to 444 images from 12 annealing protocol trials, we analyze the transition from the "quenched" state to a more parallel and coherent "annealed" state, and identify two distinct evolution modes (Type A and Type B) linked to field polarity. Our results provide a quantitative analysis of geometric and topological properties in magnetic stripe patterns and offer new insights into their local structural evolution, and establish a general tool for analyzing complex labyrinthine systems.

STR-ELJan 10, 2025
Machine Learning Force-Field Approach for Itinerant Electron Magnets

Sheng Zhang, Yunhao Fan, Kotaro Shimizu et al.

We review the recent development of machine-learning (ML) force-field frameworks for Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) dynamics simulations of itinerant electron magnets, focusing on the general theory and implementations of symmetry-invariant representations of spin configurations. The crucial properties that such magnetic descriptors must satisfy are differentiability with respect to spin rotations and invariance to both lattice point-group symmetry and internal spin rotation symmetry. We propose an efficient implementation based on the concept of reference irreducible representations, modified from the group-theoretical power-spectrum and bispectrum methods. The ML framework is demonstrated using the s-d models, which are widely applied in spintronics research. We show that LLG simulations based on local fields predicted by the trained ML models successfully reproduce representative non-collinear spin structures, including 120$^\circ$, tetrahedral, and skyrmion crystal orders of the triangular-lattice s-d models. Large-scale thermal quench simulations enabled by ML models further reveal intriguing freezing dynamics and glassy stripe states consisting of skyrmions and bi-merons. Our work highlights the utility of ML force-field approach to dynamical modeling of complex spin orders in itinerant electron magnets.

STAT-MECHDec 16, 2024
Echo State network for coarsening dynamics of charge density waves

Clement Dinh, Yunhao Fan, Gia-Wei Chern

An echo state network (ESN) is a type of reservoir computer that uses a recurrent neural network with a sparsely connected hidden layer. Compared with other recurrent neural networks, one great advantage of ESN is the simplicity of its training process. Yet, despite the seemingly restricted learnable parameters, ESN has been shown to successfully capture the spatial-temporal dynamics of complex patterns. Here we build an ESN to model the coarsening dynamics of charge-density waves (CDW) in a semi-classical Holstein model, which exhibits a checkerboard electron density modulation at half-filling stabilized by a commensurate lattice distortion. The inputs to the ESN are local CDW order-parameters in a finite neighborhood centered around a given site, while the output is the predicted CDW order of the center site at the next time step. Special care is taken in the design of couplings between hidden layer and input nodes to ensure lattice symmetries are properly incorporated into the ESN model. Since the model predictions depend only on CDW configurations of a finite domain, the ESN is scalable and transferrable in the sense that a model trained on dataset from a small system can be directly applied to dynamical simulations on larger lattices. Our work opens a new avenue for efficient dynamical modeling of pattern formations in functional electron materials.

STAT-MECHNov 29, 2024
Machine learning force-field model for kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of itinerant Ising magnets

Alexa Tyberg, Yunhao Fan, Gia-Wei Chern

We present a scalable machine learning (ML) framework for large-scale kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) simulations of itinerant electron Ising systems. As the effective interactions between Ising spins in such itinerant magnets are mediated by conducting electrons, the calculation of energy change due to a local spin update requires solving an electronic structure problem. Such repeated electronic structure calculations could be overwhelmingly prohibitive for large systems. Assuming the locality principle, a convolutional neural network (CNN) model is developed to directly predict the effective local field and the corresponding energy change associated with a given spin update based on Ising configuration in a finite neighborhood. As the kernel size of the CNN is fixed at a constant, the model can be directly scalable to kMC simulations of large lattices. Our approach is reminiscent of the ML force-field models widely used in first-principles molecular dynamics simulations. Applying our ML framework to a square-lattice double-exchange Ising model, we uncover unusual coarsening of ferromagnetic domains at low temperatures. Our work highlights the potential of ML methods for large-scale modeling of similar itinerant systems with discrete dynamical variables.

STR-ELJan 3, 2022
Descriptors for Machine Learning Model of Generalized Force Field in Condensed Matter Systems

Puhan Zhang, Sheng Zhang, Gia-Wei Chern

We outline the general framework of machine learning (ML) methods for multi-scale dynamical modeling of condensed matter systems, and in particular of strongly correlated electron models. Complex spatial temporal behaviors in these systems often arise from the interplay between quasi-particles and the emergent dynamical classical degrees of freedom, such as local lattice distortions, spins, and order-parameters. Central to the proposed framework is the ML energy model that, by successfully emulating the time-consuming electronic structure calculation, can accurately predict a local energy based on the classical field in the intermediate neighborhood. In order to properly include the symmetry of the electron Hamiltonian, a crucial component of the ML energy model is the descriptor that transforms the neighborhood configuration into invariant feature variables, which are input to the learning model. A general theory of the descriptor for the classical fields is formulated, and two types of models are distinguished depending on the presence or absence of an internal symmetry for the classical field. Several specific approaches to the descriptor of the classical fields are presented. Our focus is on the group-theoretical method that offers a systematic and rigorous approach to compute invariants based on the bispectrum coefficients. We propose an efficient implementation of the bispectrum method based on the concept of reference irreducible representations. Finally, the implementations of the various descriptors are demonstrated on well-known electronic lattice models.

MES-HALLDec 22, 2021
Machine learning nonequilibrium electron forces for adiabatic spin dynamics

Puhan Zhang, Gia-Wei Chern

We present a generalized potential theory of nonequilibrium torques for the Landau-Lifshitz equation. The general formulation of exchange forces in terms of two potential energies allows for the implementation of accurate machine learning models for adiabatic spin dynamics of out-of-equilibrium itinerant magnetic systems. To demonstrate our approach, we develop a deep-learning neural network that successfully learns the forces in a driven s-d model computed from the nonequilibrium Green's function method. We show that the Landau-Lifshitz dynamics simulations with forces predicted from the neural-net model accurately reproduce the voltage-driven domain-wall propagation. Our work opens a new avenue for multi-scale modeling of nonequilibrium dynamical phenomena in itinerant magnets and spintronics based on machine-learning models.

STR-ELMay 27, 2021
Anomalous phase separation dynamics in a correlated electron system: machine-learning enabled large-scale kinetic Monte Carlo simulations

Sheng Zhang, Puhan Zhang, Gia-Wei Chern

Phase separation plays a central role in the emergence of novel functionalities of correlated electron materials. The structure of the mixed-phase states depends strongly on the nonequilibrium phase-separation dynamics, which has so far yet to be systematically investigated, especially on the theoretical side. With the aid of modern machine learning methods, we demonstrate the first-ever large-scale kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of the phase separation process for the Falicov-Kimball model, which is one of the canonical strongly correlated electron systems. We uncover an unusual phase-separation scenario where domain coarsening occurs simultaneously at two different scales: the growth of checkerboard clusters at smaller length scales and the expansion of super-clusters, which are aggregates of the checkerboard clusters of the same sign, at a larger scale. We show that the emergence of super-clusters is due to a hidden dynamical breaking of the sublattice symmetry. Arrested growth of the checkerboard patterns and of the super-clusters is shown to result from a correlation-induced self-trapping mechanism. Glassy behaviors similar to the one reported in this work could be generic for other correlated electron systems.

STR-ELMay 18, 2021
Arrested phase separation in double-exchange models: machine-learning enabled large-scale simulation

Puhan Zhang, Gia-Wei Chern

We present large-scale dynamical simulations of electronic phase separation in the single-band double-exchange model based on deep-learning neural-network potentials trained from small-size exact diagonalization solutions. We uncover an intriguing correlation-induced freezing behavior as doped holes are segregated from half-filled insulating background during equilibration. While the aggregation of holes is stabilized by the formation of ferromagnetic clusters through Hund's coupling between charge carriers and local magnetic moments, this stabilization also creates confining potentials for holes when antiferromagnetic spin-spin correlation is well developed in the background. The dramatically reduced mobility of the self-trapped holes prematurely disrupts further growth of the ferromagnetic clusters, leading to an arrested phase separation. Implications of our findings for phase separation dynamics in materials that exhibit colossal magnetoresistance effect are discussed.

STR-ELJun 7, 2020
Machine learning dynamics of phase separation in correlated electron magnets

Puhan Zhang, Preetha Saha, Gia-Wei Chern

We demonstrate machine-learning enabled large-scale dynamical simulations of electronic phase separation in double-exchange system. This model, also known as the ferromagnetic Kondo lattice model, is believed to be relevant for the colossal magnetoresistance phenomenon. Real-space simulations of such inhomogeneous states with exchange forces computed from the electron Hamiltonian can be prohibitively expensive for large systems. Here we show that linear-scaling exchange field computation can be achieved using neural networks trained by datasets from exact calculation on small lattices. Our Landau-Lifshitz dynamics simulations based on machine-learning potentials nicely reproduce not only the nonequilibrium relaxation process, but also correlation functions that agree quantitatively with exact simulations. Our work paves the way for large-scale dynamical simulations of correlated electron systems using machine-learning models.

STR-ELOct 4, 2018
Machine learning electron correlation in a disordered medium

Jianhua Ma, Puhan Zhang, Yaohua Tan et al.

Learning from data has led to a paradigm shift in computational materials science. In particular, it has been shown that neural networks can learn the potential energy surface and interatomic forces through examples, thus bypassing the computationally expensive density functional theory calculations. Combining many-body techniques with a deep learning approach, we demonstrate that a fully-connected neural network is able to learn the complex collective behavior of electrons in strongly correlated systems. Specifically, we consider the Anderson-Hubbard (AH) model, which is a canonical system for studying the interplay between electron correlation and strong localization. The ground states of the AH model on a square lattice are obtained using the real-space Gutzwiller method. The obtained solutions are used to train a multi-task multi-layer neural network, which subsequently can accurately predict quantities such as the local probability of double occupation and the quasiparticle weight, given the disorder potential in the neighborhood as the input.