Mixture-of-Experts Graph Transformers for Interpretable Particle Collision Detection
This addresses the need for trust and transparency in AI-driven high-energy physics analysis, though it is incremental as it builds on existing Graph Transformer and Mixture-of-Expert methods.
The paper tackled the problem of limited interpretability in Graph Neural Networks for particle collision detection by proposing a Graph Transformer with Mixture-of-Expert layers, achieving competitive classification accuracy on simulated ATLAS experiment data while providing interpretable outputs aligned with known physics.
The Large Hadron Collider at CERN produces immense volumes of complex data from high-energy particle collisions, demanding sophisticated analytical techniques for effective interpretation. Neural Networks, including Graph Neural Networks, have shown promise in tasks such as event classification and object identification by representing collisions as graphs. However, while Graph Neural Networks excel in predictive accuracy, their "black box" nature often limits their interpretability, making it difficult to trust their decision-making processes. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that combines a Graph Transformer model with Mixture-of-Expert layers to achieve high predictive performance while embedding interpretability into the architecture. By leveraging attention maps and expert specialization, the model offers insights into its internal decision-making, linking predictions to physics-informed features. We evaluate the model on simulated events from the ATLAS experiment, focusing on distinguishing rare Supersymmetric signal events from Standard Model background. Our results highlight that the model achieves competitive classification accuracy while providing interpretable outputs that align with known physics, demonstrating its potential as a robust and transparent tool for high-energy physics data analysis. This approach underscores the importance of explainability in machine learning methods applied to high energy physics, offering a path toward greater trust in AI-driven discoveries.