We describe the outcome of a data challenge conducted as part of the Dark Machines Initiative and the Les Houches 2019 workshop on Physics at TeV colliders. The challenged aims at detecting signals of new physics at the LHC using unsupervised machine learning algorithms. First, we propose how an anomaly score could be implemented to define model-independent signal regions in LHC searches. We define and describe a large benchmark dataset, consisting of >1 Billion simulated LHC events corresponding to $10~\rm{fb}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. We then review a wide range of anomaly detection and density estimation algorithms, developed in the context of the data challenge, and we measure their performance in a set of realistic analysis environments. We draw a number of useful conclusions that will aid the development of unsupervised new physics searches during the third run of the LHC, and provide our benchmark dataset for future studies at https://www.phenoMLdata.org. Code to reproduce the analysis is provided at https://github.com/bostdiek/DarkMachines-UnsupervisedChallenge.
Guided super-resolution (GSR) of thermal images using visible range images is challenging because of the difference in the spectral-range between the images. This in turn means that there is significant texture-mismatch between the images, which manifests as blur and ghosting artifacts in the super-resolved thermal image. To tackle this, we propose a novel algorithm for GSR based on pyramidal edge-maps extracted from the visible image. Our proposed network has two sub-networks. The first sub-network super-resolves the low-resolution thermal image while the second obtains edge-maps from the visible image at a growing perceptual scale and integrates them into the super-resolution sub-network with the help of attention-based fusion. Extraction and integration of multi-level edges allows the super-resolution network to process texture-to-object level information progressively, enabling more straightforward identification of overlapping edges between the input images. Extensive experiments show that our model outperforms the state-of-the-art GSR methods, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Depth estimation from a single underwater image is one of the most challenging problems and is highly ill-posed. Due to the absence of large generalized underwater depth datasets and the difficulty in obtaining ground truth depth-maps, supervised learning techniques such as direct depth regression cannot be used. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised method for depth estimation from a single underwater image taken `in the wild' by using haze as a cue for depth. Our approach is based on indirect depth-map estimation where we learn the mapping functions between unpaired RGB-D terrestrial images and arbitrary underwater images to estimate the required depth-map. We propose a method which is based on the principles of cycle-consistent learning and uses dense-block based auto-encoders as generator networks. We evaluate and compare our method both quantitatively and qualitatively on various underwater images with diverse attenuation and scattering conditions and show that our method produces state-of-the-art results for unsupervised depth estimation from a single underwater image.
Lokesh Boominathan, Mayug Maniparambil, Honey Gupta et al.
Fourier Ptychography is a recently proposed imaging technique that yields high-resolution images by computationally transcending the diffraction blur of an optical system. At the crux of this method is the phase retrieval algorithm, which is used for computationally stitching together low-resolution images taken under varying illumination angles of a coherent light source. However, the traditional iterative phase retrieval technique relies heavily on the initialization and also need a good amount of overlap in the Fourier domain for the successively captured low-resolution images, thus increasing the acquisition time and data. We show that an auto-encoder based architecture can be adaptively trained for phase retrieval under both low overlap, where traditional techniques completely fail, and at higher levels of overlap. For the low overlap case we show that a supervised deep learning technique using an autoencoder generator is a good choice for solving the Fourier ptychography problem. And for the high overlap case, we show that optimizing the generator for reducing the forward model error is an appropriate choice. Using simulations for the challenging case of uncorrelated phase and amplitude, we show that our method outperforms many of the previously proposed Fourier ptychography phase retrieval techniques.