Neural Surrogate Modeling
Overview
Neural surrogate modeling replaces repeated calls to expensive simulators with learned approximations of physical fields, system dynamics, or quantities of interest, making tasks such as design search, control, and Bayesian inference more practical. Common approaches include neural operators for PDE solution maps, graph neural networks for meshes and networks, reduced-order latent models, and physics-informed or hybrid models that combine learned components with governing equations. Researchers also use multi-fidelity training, active learning, and probabilistic models to reduce data needs and estimate uncertainty. A central challenge is that good one-step or in-distribution accuracy does not guarantee stable long rollouts, reliable extrapolation, physical consistency, or improved downstream decisions; classical solvers remain important when stringent accuracy and verification are required.
Latest papers
418 papers45 papers in the last four weeks, down 15% on the four weeks before. 0.3% of all new papers.
Graph Neural Networks in the Wilson Loop Representation of Abelian Lattice Gauge Theories
LUMINA: A Grid Foundation Model for Benchmarking AC Optimal Power Flow Surrogate Learning
HyCOP: Hybrid Composition Operators for Interpretable Learning of PDEs
Teacher Forcing as Generalized Bayes: Optimization Geometry Mismatch in Switching Surrogates for Chaotic Dynamics
Geometry-free prediction of inertial lift forces in microfluidic devices using deep learning
Relaxation-Informed Training of Neural Network Surrogate Models
SOC-ICNN: From Polyhedral to Conic Geometry for Learning Convex Surrogate Functions
Neural surrogates for crystal growth dynamics with variable supersaturation: explicit vs. implicit conditioning
Assessing Emulator Design and Training for Modal Aerosol Microphysics Parameterizations in E3SMv2
A Hybridizable Neural Time Integrator for Stable Autoregressive Forecasting
Learning to Emulate Chaos: Adversarial Optimal Transport Regularization
climt-paraformer: Stable Emulation of Convective Parameterization using a Temporal Memory-aware Transformer
A Deep U-Net Framework for Flood Hazard Mapping Using Hydraulic Simulations of the Wupper Catchment
Data-Driven Open-Loop Simulation for Digital-Twin Operator Decision Support in Wastewater Treatment
Skillful Global Ocean Emulation and the Role of Correlation-Aware Loss
Scalable Physics-Informed Neural Differential Equations and Data-Driven Algorithms for HVAC Systems
Neural Adjoint Method for Meta-optics: Accelerating Volumetric Inverse Design via Fourier Neural Operators
FLARE: A Data-Efficient Surrogate for Predicting Displacement Fields in Directed Energy Deposition
Predicting Power-System Dynamic Trajectories with Foundation Models
SOLIS: Physics-Informed Learning of Interpretable Neural Surrogates for Nonlinear Systems
Physics-Informed Machine Learning for Pouch Cell Temperature Estimation
Material-Agnostic Zero-Shot Thermal Inference for Metal Additive Manufacturing via a Parametric PINN Framework
TRACER: Trace-Based Adaptive Cost-Efficient Routing for LLM Classification
AutoSurrogate: An LLM-Driven Multi-Agent Framework for Autonomous Construction of Deep Learning Surrogate Models in Subsurface Flow
Emulating Non-Differentiable Metrics via Knowledge-Guided Learning: Introducing the Minkowski Image Loss
differentiability gap'' presents a primary bottleneck in Earth system deep learning: since models cannot be trained directly on non-differentiable scientific metrics and must rely on smooth proxies (e.g., MSE), they often fail to capture high-frequency details, yielding blurry'' outputs. We develop a framework that bridges this gap using two different methods to deal with non-differentiable functions: the first is to analytically approximate the original non-differentiable function into a differentiable equivalent one; the second is to learn differentiable surrogates for scientific functionals. We formulate the analytical approximation by relaxing discrete topological operations using temperature-controlled sigmoids and continuous logical operators. Conversely, our neural emulator uses Lipschitz-convolutional neural networks to stabilize gradient learning via: (1) spectral normalization to bound the Lipschitz constant; and (2) hard architectural constraints enforcing geometric principles. We demonstrate this framework's utility by developing the Minkowski image loss, a differentiable equivalent for the integral-geometric measures of surface precipitation fields (area, perimeter, connected components). Validated on the EUMETNET OPERA dataset, our constrained neural surrogate achieves high emulation accuracy, completely eliminating the geometric violations observed in unconstrained baselines. However, applying these differentiable surrogates to a deterministic super-resolution task reveals a fundamental trade-off: while strict Lipschitz regularization ensures optimization stability, it inherently over-smooths gradient signals, restricting the recovery of highly localized convective textures. This work highlights the necessity of coupling such topological constraints with stochastic generative architectures to achieve full morphological realism.