Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation is indispensable for modeling beam dynamics in particle accelerators, but its computational cost limits many-query workflows, such as configuration exploration, virtual diagnostics, and controller design. We introduce GLOBE, a physics-constrained Generative Latent Operator for Beam Evolution, modeling the nonlinear, control-dependent, multiscale evolution of 3D beam--field dynamics covering 107 spatial cells. GLOBE compresses beam--field states into a compact latent space and factors their evolution into two components. A control-conditioned neural operator learns the dominant dynamics, while an amplitude-normalized generative model captures the residual distribution, recovering fine-scale structures and conditional variations. GLOBE enforces field constraints by regime-specific, parameter-free operators: a Poisson solve reconstructs the electric field in the electrostatic regime, and a spectral projection imposes Gauss's law and a divergence-free magnetic field in the electromagnetic regime. On two high-resolution 3D particle-accelerator benchmarks, bunched-beam transport and plasma-wakefield acceleration, GLOBE lowers relative-L2 error by 9% and 13%, low-frequency spectral error by 69% and 51%, and mid-frequency spectral error by 54% and 20% relative to the strongest baseline (DPOT), satisfies field constraints, and reduces hours of PIC simulation to a minute per rollout.
Figures & tables
Figure 1: Framework Overview: The encoder Eψ compresses initial beam–field states u1:k into latent z1:k . At each rollout step t , the latest k latents zt−k+1:t and machine operation controls c are given to the latent dynamics models. The neural operator Gθ predicts the dominant evolution z~t+1:t+hdet and the flow-matching model Rξ samples the residual r~t+1:t+h . Their sum z~t+1:t+h is appended to the history and the prediction advances. Finally, Dψ reconstructs the mesh-resolved states and P enforces regime-specific field constraints.
Figure 2: Compressive Autoencoder : For each 3D input, every 2×2×2 block is split by the low-/high-pass pair (h,g) into 8 wavelet subbands, then the encoder Eψ compresses it to a grid latent z . The decoder Dψ mirrors the hierarchy, closing with the inverse Haar transform. Around every down-/up-sampling module, a parameter-free space–channel shortcut ( ⊕ ) provides references across resolution by channel averaging and duplication with reshaping, so the corresponding convolutional branch fits only a residual correction.
Bunched-Beam Transport
PWFA
Method
Params
Rel- L2↓
LF (low / mid / high) ↓
Time ↓
Params
Rel- L2↓
LF (low / mid / high) ↓
Time ↓
DPOT
91.4M
0.177
0.112 / 0.986 / 0.954
7.55 s
109.4M
0.224
0.156 / 0.377 / 0.634
3.04 s
UPT
92.6M
0.261
0.147 / 0.999 / 1.000
1384s
107.7M
0.378
0.251 / 0.640 / 2.585
114.5s
MPP
90.0M
0.347
0.384 / 0.991 / 0.978
943s
110.9M
0.325
0.443 / 1.279 / 3.212
73.5s
P3D-D
91.4M
0.329
0.197 / 0.961 / 2.160
91.3s
110.9M
0.520
0.314 / 0.789 / 19.3
17.9s
P3D-G
91.4M
0.490
0.437 / 0.323 / 1.115
1490s
111.0M
1.219
0.794 / 151 / 6002
309s
Table 1: Quantitative comparison of GLOBE and baselines on bunched-beam transport and PWFA.
Figure 3: Bunched-beam transport. Left: Transverse charge projection ∫ρdz , top: ground truth, bottom: one prediction sample from GLOBE-C. Right: Evolution of σx , σy , σz , and σx/σy . Due to rapid oscillation, the main curves of transverse quantities show period-wise extrema and the insets show frame-wise evolution. Prediction curve is the mean of eight GLOBE-C samples, and shading indicates the sample standard deviation.
Figure 4: PWFA. Left: longitudinal electric field Ez in the x – z mid-plane, overlaid with pseudo-particles of driver, witness, and plasma electrons sampled from charge density fields of WarpX (top) and GLOBE-C (bottom). First column is the last input frame; the rest show the forecast. Right: evolution of Ez,wit and rbubble .
Haar
Shortcut
Lrel↓
Lspec↓
Lfd↓
Runtime (s) ↓
✗
✗
0.0891
0.1070
0.697
6.04
✓
✗
0.0547
0.0740
0.566
0.97
✓
✓
0.0457
0.0685
0.489
1.00
Table 2: Ablation of two designs in our autoencoder: Haar transform (Haar) and multiscale resolution shortcut (Shortcut). The last row combines both designs and corresponds to the proposed autoencoder.
Rel- L2↓
∇⋅E−ρ/ε0↓
∇⋅B↓
w/o P
0.191
2.72×10−2
6.85×10−3
w/ P
0.194
2.77×10−7
2.78×10−7
Table 3: Ablation of the physics-constrained operator on PWFA. Constraint residuals are normalized RMS values averaged over frames and trajectories.
Bunched-Beam Transport
PWFA
Method
Rel- L2↓
LF↓
Rel- L2↓
LF↓
HFS
0.163
0.090 / 0.995 / 1.004
0.835
2.04 / 6.44 / 258
GLOBE-D (Ours)
0.144
0.039 / 0.994 / 1.003
0.174
0.083 / 0.350 / 0.592
HFS+DM
0.173
0.088 / 0.682 / 1.034
3.258
46.8 / 1301 / 2446
GLOBE-C (Ours)
0.161
0.035 / 0.457 / 0.973
0.194
0.077 / 0.300 / 0.618
Table 4: Ablation of latent Transformer backbone vs. HFS.
Appendix figures & tables32 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
Figure 5: Visualization of the Transformer backbone used by deterministic neural operator Gθ and generative residual model Rξ .
Bunched-Beam Transport
PWFA
Method
Rel- L2↓
LF (low / mid / high) ↓
Rel- L2↓
LF (low / mid / high) ↓
GLOBE-D (no residual)
0.144
0.039 / 0.994 / 1.003
0.174
0.083 / 0.350 / 0.592
GLOBE-C ( σr only)
0.147
0.039 / 0.894 / 0.986
0.266
0.231 / 4.32 / 6.66
GLOBE-C (Ours)
0.161
0.035 / 0.457 / 0.973
0.194
0.077 / 0.300 / 0.618
Appendix
Table 5: Ablation of the amplitude normalization for the generative residual. GLOBE-C uses the factorized normalizer sω=σr⊙swin⊙stok ; the variant keeps only the global per-channel scale σr . GLOBE-D (deterministic anchor, no residual) is shown for reference.
Figure 6: Bunched-beam Transport Run 392: transverse beam evolution. Ground-truth and predicted density projections are shown together with the evolution of σx , σy , σz , and σx/σy .
Figure 7: Bunched-beam Transport Run 392: longitudinal beam evolution. Ground-truth and predicted longitudinal projections are compared over the rollout, with relative density errors shown below.
Figure 8: Bunched-beam Transport Run 392: fine-scale structure in the y=0 longitudinal slice. The deterministic prediction captures the bulk density evolution, while generative refinement recovers the realization-dependent mid-band structure observed in WarpX.
Figure 9: Bunched-beam Transport Run 244: transverse beam evolution. Ground-truth and predicted density projections are shown together with the evolution of σx , σy , σz , and σx/σy .
Figure 10: Bunched-beam Transport Run 244: longitudinal beam evolution. Ground-truth and predicted longitudinal projections are compared over the rollout, with relative density errors shown below.
Figure 11: Bunched-beam Transport Run 244: fine-scale structure in the y=0 longitudinal slice. The deterministic prediction captures the bulk density evolution, while generative refinement recovers the realization-dependent mid-band structure observed in WarpX.
Figure 12: Bunched-beam Transport Run 389: transverse beam evolution. Ground-truth and predicted density projections are shown together with the evolution of σx , σy , σz , and σx/σy .
Figure 13: Bunched-beam Transport Run 389: longitudinal beam evolution. Ground-truth and predicted longitudinal projections are compared over the rollout, with relative density errors shown below.
Figure 14: Bunched-beam Transport Run 389: fine-scale structure in the y=0 longitudinal slice. The deterministic prediction captures the bulk density evolution, while generative refinement recovers the realization-dependent mid-band structure observed in WarpX.
Figure 15: Bunched-beam Transport Run 87: transverse beam evolution. Ground-truth and predicted density projections are shown together with the evolution of σx , σy , σz , and σx/σy .
Figure 16: Bunched-beam Transport Run 87: longitudinal beam evolution. Ground-truth and predicted longitudinal projections are compared over the rollout, with relative density errors shown below.
Figure 17: Bunched-beam Transport Run 87: fine-scale structure in the y=0 longitudinal slice. The deterministic prediction captures the bulk density evolution, while generative refinement recovers the realization-dependent mid-band structure observed in WarpX.
Figure 18: Bunched-beam Transport Run 343: transverse beam evolution. Ground-truth and predicted density projections are shown together with the evolution of σx , σy , σz , and σx/σy .
Figure 19: Bunched-beam Transport Run 343: longitudinal beam evolution. Ground-truth and predicted longitudinal projections are compared over the rollout, with relative density errors shown below.
Figure 20: Bunched-beam Transport Run 343: fine-scale structure in the y=0 longitudinal slice. The deterministic prediction captures the bulk density evolution, while generative refinement recovers the realization-dependent mid-band structure observed in WarpX.
Figure 21: PWFA Run 312: wake evolution in the x – z plane together with trajectory-level observables. The color map shows Ez ; particles are overlaid by species. Right: predicted and reference observables with the ensemble sample deviation.
Figure 22: PWFA Run 312: detailed comparison at t=25 for representative field quantities. Left to right: ground truth, prediction, and error.
Figure 23: PWFA Run 312: relative-error maps for representative channels at selected times. Colors show (prediction−truth)/max∣truth∣ .
Figure 24: PWFA Run 355: wake evolution in the x – z plane together with trajectory-level observables. The color map shows Ez ; particles are overlaid by species. Right: predicted and reference observables with the ensemble sample deviation.
Figure 25: PWFA Run 355: detailed comparison at t=25 for representative field quantities. Left to right: ground truth, prediction, and error.
Figure 26: PWFA Run 355: relative-error maps for representative channels at selected times. Colors show (prediction−truth)/max∣truth∣ .
Figure 27: PWFA Run 271: wake evolution in the x – z plane together with trajectory-level observables. The color map shows Ez ; particles are overlaid by species. Right: predicted and reference observables with the ensemble sample deviation.
Figure 28: PWFA Run 271: detailed comparison at t=25 for representative field quantities. Left to right: ground truth, prediction, and error.
Figure 29: PWFA Run 271: relative-error maps for representative channels at selected times. Colors show (prediction−truth)/max∣truth∣ .
Figure 30: PWFA Run 27: wake evolution in the x – z plane together with trajectory-level observables. The color map shows Ez ; particles are overlaid by species. Right: predicted and reference observables with the ensemble sample deviation.
Figure 31: PWFA Run 27: detailed comparison at t=25 for representative field quantities. Left to right: ground truth, prediction, and error.
Figure 32: PWFA Run 27: relative-error maps for representative channels at selected times. Colors show (prediction−truth)/max∣truth∣ .
Figure 33: PWFA Run 118: wake evolution in the x – z plane together with trajectory-level observables. The color map shows Ez ; particles are overlaid by species. Right: predicted and reference observables with the ensemble sample deviation.
Figure 34: PWFA Run 118: detailed comparison at t=25 for representative field quantities. Left to right: ground truth, prediction, and error.
Figure 35: PWFA Run 118: relative-error maps for representative channels at selected times. Colors show (prediction−truth)/max∣truth∣ .
We address the problem of recovering a time-varying 4D distribution from a sparse sequence of 2D projections - analogous to novel-view synthesis from sparse cameras, but applied to the 4D transverse phase space density ρ(x,px,y,py) of charged particle beams. Direct single shot measurement of this high-dimensional distribution is physically impossible in real particle accelerator systems; only limited 1D or 2D projections are accessible. We propose PhaseFlow4D, a feedback-guided latent diffusion model that reconstructs and tracks the full 4D phase space from incomplete 2D observations alone, with built-in hard physics constraints. Our core technical contribution is a 4D VAE whose decoder generates the full 4D phase space tensor, from which 2D projections are analytically computed and compared against 2D beam measurements. This projection-consistency constraint guarantees physical correctness by construction - not as a soft penalty, but as an architectural prior. An adaptive feedback loop then continuously tunes the conditioning vector of the latent diffusion model to track time-varying distributions online without retraining. We validate on multi-particle simulations of heavy-ion beams at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), where full physics simulations require ∼6 hours on a 100-core HPC system. PhaseFlow4D achieves accurate 4D reconstructions 11000× faster while faithfully tracking distribution shifts under time-varying source conditions - demonstrating that principled generative reconstruction under incomplete observations transfers robustly beyond visual domains.
Alexander Scheinker, Alexander Plastun, Peter Ostroumov
Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos 87545, NM, USA · Facility for Rare Isotopes Beams Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
Complex dynamical systems, such as particle accelerators, require tuning over high-dimensional, nonlinear state and parameter spaces while experimental measurements and high-fidelity simulations can be expensive. Learned latent representations provide a compact domain for such optimization, but poorly supported regions of the learned manifold may decode into unrealistic physical states and yield deceptively favorable objectives. To address this challenge, we propose the Classifier-pruned Bayesian Optimization-based Latent-space Tuner (CBOL-Tuner), which performs Bayesian optimization over a temporally structured latent representation of 6D beam phase-space dynamics. The CBOL-Tuner integrates a conditional variational autoencoder for latent space representation, a long short-term memory network for temporal dynamics, a lightweight neural network for parameter estimation, and a classifier-pruned Bayesian optimizer to adaptively search and filter the latent space for optimal solutions. This framework enables feasibility-aware exploration of learned scientific representations for accelerator tuning.
Mahindra Rautela, Alan Williams, Alexander Scheinker
Controlling the longitudinal laser pulse shape in photoinjectors of Free-Electron Lasers is a powerful lever for optimizing electron beam quality, but systematic exploration of the vast design space is limited by the cost of brute-force pulse propagation simulations. We present a generative modeling framework based on Wasserstein Autoencoders to learn a differentiable latent interface between pulse shaping and downstream beam dynamics. Our empirical findings show that the learned latent space is continuous and interpretable while maintaining high-fidelity reconstructions. Pulse families such as higher-order Gaussians trace coherent trajectories, while standardizing the temporal pulse lengths shows a latent organization correlated with pulse energy. Analysis via principal components and Gaussian Mixture Models reveals a well behaved latent geometry, enabling smooth transitions between distinct pulse types via linear interpolation. The model generalizes from simulated data to real experimental pulse measurements, accurately reconstructing pulses and embedding them consistently into the learned manifold. Overall, the approach reduces reliance on expensive pulse-propagation simulations and facilitates downstream beam dynamics simulation and analysis.
Alexander Klemps, Denis Ilia, Pradeep Kr. Banerjee +3
Institute for Data Science Foundations, Hamburg University of Technology, Germany · Deutsches Elektron-Synchrotron (DESY), Hamburg, Germany