Learning Data-Efficient and Generalizable Neural Operators via Fundamental Physics Knowledge

Neural operators have emerged as promising surrogate models for solving partial differential equations (PDEs), but struggle to generalise beyond training distributions and are often constrained to a fixed temporal discretisation. This work introduces a physics-informed training framework that addresses these limitations by decomposing PDEs using operator splitting methods, training separate neural operators to learn individual non-linear physical operators while approximating linear operators with fixed finite-difference convolutions. This modular mixture-of-experts architecture enables generalisation to novel physical regimes by explicitly encoding the underlying operator structure. We formulate the modelling task as a neural ordinary differential equation (ODE) where these learned operators constitute the right-hand side, enabling continuous-in-time predictions through standard ODE solvers and implicitly enforcing PDE constraints. Demonstrated on incompressible and compressible Navier--Stokes equations, our approach achieves better convergence and superior performance when generalising to unseen physics. The method remains parameter-efficient, enabling temporal extrapolation beyond training horizons, and provides interpretable components whose behaviour can be verified against known physics.

Developing foundational neural simulators for Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) requires robust generalization across diverse physical parameters and boundary conditions. However, current deep learning approaches largely face a structural trade-off between condition-agnostic deployment and physical fidelity. Purely data-driven operators infer the underlying physics implicitly and thus lack the explicit constraints needed to ensure physically valid solutions across varying domains, rendering the learning problem ill-posed. On the other hand, Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) enforce rigorous physical constraints but necessitate costly, instance-specific optimization. Furthermore, the massive scale of emerging foundational operators has severely degraded their inference speeds, making them computationally uncompetitive with traditional numerical solvers. To address this bottleneck between condition-agnostic deployment, physical rigor, and inference efficiency, we propose a Generalized Neural Operator. By formalizing the classical conditions for well-posedness within neural operators, our framework demonstrates the theoretical benefits of explicitly conditioning on PDE parameters and boundary conditions. To implement this synthesis without compromising computational speed, we introduce three novel architectural components: a parameter-gated mixture of kernels for efficient parameter generalization, a generalized boundary transfer operator that projects arbitrary boundary constraints into a unified latent Dirichlet representation, and a specialized training objective to ensure stability. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our theoretically grounded approach achieves superior generalization across heterogeneous physical regimes while maintaining strict inference efficiency comparable to conventional numerical baselines.

Partial differential equations (PDEs) govern diverse physical phenomena, yet high-fidelity numerical solutions are computationally expensive and Machine Learning approaches lack generalization. While Scientific Foundation Models (SFMs) aim to provide universal surrogates, typical encoding-decoding approaches suffer from high pretraining costs and limited interpretability. In this paper, we propose Compositional Neural Operators (CompNO) for 2D systems, a framework that decomposes complex PDEs into a library of Foundation Blocks. Each block is a specialized Neural Operator pretrained on elementary physics. This modular library contains convection, diffusion, and nonlinear convection blocks as well as a Poisson Solver, enabling the framework to address the pressure-velocity coupling. These experts are assembled via an Adaptation Block featuring an Aggregator. This aggregator learns nonlinear interactions by minimizing data loss and physics-based residuals driven from governing equations. The proposed approach has been evaluated on the Convection-Diffusion equation, the Burgers' equation, and the Incompressible Navier-Stokes equation. Our results demonstrate that learning from elementary operators significantly improves adaptability, enhances model interpretability and facilitates the reuse of pretrained blocks when adapting to new physical systems.