Basins of attraction of soft sphere packings are not fractal
Praharsh Suryadevara
Mathias Casiulis
Stefano Martiniani
Energy Landscapes
What is a basin?
\(V(x)\)
\(x\)
Energy Landscapes in one dimension
\(V(x)\)
\(x\)
\(x_0\)
Energy Landscapes in one dimension
\(V(x)\)
\(x\)
$$ \frac{\text{d} x}{\text{d} t} = - \nabla V(x)$$
Steepest Descent
\(x_0\)
Energy Landscapes in one dimension
\(V(x)\)
\(x\)
$$ \frac{\text{d} x}{\text{d} t} = - \nabla V(x)$$
Steepest Descent
\(x_0\)
Energy Landscapes in one dimension
\(V(x)\)
\(x\)
$$ \frac{\text{d} x}{\text{d} t} = - \nabla V(x)$$
Steepest Descent
\(x_0\)
Energy Landscapes in one dimension
\(V(x)\)
\(x\)
$$ \frac{\text{d} x}{\text{d} t} = - \nabla V(x)$$
Steepest Descent
\(x_0\)
\(x_{min}\)
Energy Landscapes in one dimension
\(V(x)\)
\(x\)
basin 2
Basin tiling (what we're interested in)
basin 1
basin 3
$$ \frac{\text{d} x}{\text{d} t} = - \nabla V(x)$$
Steepest Descent
Basin identification in \((N-1)\times d\) dimensions
$$ \frac{\text{d} x}{\text{d} t} = - \nabla V(x)$$
steepest descent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_method_in_optimization
Newton/Quasi-Newton methods (e.g. LBFGS)
Momentum-based optimizers (e.g. FIRE)
Time
$$ x_{t+\Delta t} = x_t + \Delta t \nabla V(x_t)$$
Gradient Descent/Forward Euler infinitesimal stepsizes
Error
Optimizers accurate for small systems but not benchmarked moderate/large systems
??
Basin identification in \((N-1)\times d\) dimensions
$$ \frac{\text{d} x}{\text{d} t} = - \nabla V(x)$$
steepest descent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_method_in_optimization
Optimizers
Forward Euler/Gradient descent
ODE Solvers
Expensive/Infeasible in high dimensions
Faster but accurate Methods?
Newton/Quasi-Newton methods (e.g. LBFGS)
Momentum-based optimizers (e.g. FIRE)
Basin identification in \((N-1)\times d\) dimensions
$$ \frac{\text{d} x}{\text{d} t} = - \nabla V(x)$$
steepest descent
- Solving steepest descent in \((N-1) \times D\) for interacting potentials is expensive
- Previous work mostly relies on optimization algorithms as proxies for finding basins
Momentum-based optimizers (e.g. FIRE)
Newton/Quasi-Newton methods (e.g. LBFGS)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_method_in_optimization
Goal of this Talk
I want to show you, with new physics along the way, how to get features of the energy landscape accurately
Steepest Descent
Newton/Quasi-Newton methods (e.g. LBFGS)
Momentum-based optimizers (e.g. FIRE)
$$ x_{t+\Delta t} = x_t + \Delta t \nabla V(x_t)$$
Gradient Descent/Forward Euler
System: Repulsive Soft spheres
Bidisperse Hertzian soft spheres
$$ V_{ij}(r) =\begin{cases} \frac{\epsilon}{p} \left( 1 - \frac{r}{r_{i} + r_{j}} \right) ^{p} & r < r_{i} + r_{j} \\ 0 & r > r_{i} + r_{j}\end{cases}$$ with \(p\) = 2.5 and packing fraction \(\phi> \phi_j\)
landscape dimension \(d_l \sim (N-1)\times d\)
Slicing the energy landscape
Each color is a basin
Imagine cubic basins in a regular grid
Slicing the energy landscape
Each color is a basin
Imagine cubic basins in a regular grid
16 particle basin slice with FIRE
16 particle basin slice with FIRE
\(d_l \sim (N-1) d = 30\)
\(d_l \sim (N-1) d = 30\)
ODE Solver Comparison
Better
true solution
ODE Solver Comparison
3 orders of magnitude faster than Implicit Euler at same error
Better
ODE solver solution
Max distance
Average over a 100 initial conditions
16 particle basin slice with FIRE
16 particle basin slice with FIRE
\(d_l \sim (N-1) d = 30\)
\(d_l \sim (N-1) d = 30\)
16 particle basin slice with CVODE
16 particle basin slice with CVODE
\(d_l \sim (N-1) d = 30\)
\(d_l \sim (N-1) d = 30\)
Exact Basins: 8 particles
Accuracy vs System Size
Accuracy
CVODE
FIRE
LBFGS
\(d_l \sim 254\)
\(N \sim 128 \)
Not a single sampled point matches
Areas to Volumes
\(V \sim l^d\)
\(log(V) \sim \log(l_1) + \log(l_2) + ...\)
The limiting distribution of \log(V) should go as Normal, if the mean and variance are well behaved and \(l\) isn't drawn from an already stable distribution
Measuring fractal dimension
\(d_B = \lim_{\epsilon\rightarrow 0} \frac{\log N(\epsilon)}{\log(1/\epsilon)}\)
Fractal dimension
\(d_b \sim (1.3, 1.8) \)
Bollt, Erik, et al. "Fractal basins as a mechanism for the nimble brain." Scientific Reports 13.1 (2023): 20860.
\(d_B\sim1.98\)
https://sohl-dickstein.github.io/2024/02/12/fractal.html
Ly, Andrew, and Pulin Gong. "Optimization on multifractal loss landscapes explains a diverse range of geometrical and dynamical properties of deep learning." Nature Communications 16.1 (2025): 3252.
\( \frac{d\bm{x_{i}}}{dt} = f(\bm{x_{i}}) + \sigma \sum_{j=1}^{N} \left[ A \right]_{ij} h(\bm{x}_{i}, \bm{x}_j)\)
Fractal dimension
\(d_{L-BFGS} \sim 1.40\)
\(d_{FIRE} \sim 1.33\)
\(d_{CVODE} \sim 1.10\)
\(\phi=0.86\)
Fractal dimension
\(d_{L-BFGS} \sim 1.40\)
\(d_{FIRE} \sim 1.33\)
\(d_{CVODE} \sim 1.10\)
Distribution of lengths of basins
\(N=16\) \(d_l \sim 30\)
Basins in high dimensions
Casiulis et al. Papers in Physics 15 (2023): 150001
Most Probable: Maximum radial density
Probability of landing inside the basin
Hypercube \(~1000d\)
Survival probability in a tentacle
Casiulis et al. Papers in Physics 15 (2023): 150001-150001.
Survival Probability at R: Probability of staying inside basin taking uniform samples at radius R
Survival probability in a tentacle
\(R_{1/2}\)
Survival probability in a tentacle
Casiulis et al. Papers in Physics 15 (2023): 150001-150001.
Point lies at a distance \(r\)
Text
\(r\)
Survival probability in a tentacle
Sampling basins in high dimensions
Brute force MC misses most of the volume!!
Umbrella sampling: Reconstruct uniform samples from MC walkers at different distances, which can be used to constuct volumes
Casiulis et al. Papers in Physics 15 (2023): 150001-150001.
Replica exchange
Calculating volumes in high dimensions
Casiulis et al. Papers in Physics 15 (2023): 150001-150001.
$$Z(k) = \int_{\mathbb{R}^N}^{} \mathcal{O}(x) e^{- \frac{1}{2} k \left|x-x_{0}\right|^{2}} dx$$
Partition function
Oracle (1 if inside basin. 0 if outside)
Spring (to control exploration)
$$ F(k) = - log(Z_{k}) $$
Free energy
$$ F(0) - F(k_{\infty}) = \int_{0}^{k_{\infty}} \frac{\partial F}{\partial k} dk = \int_{k_{\infty}}^{0} \langle \left| x-x_{0}\right|^{2} \rangle_{k} dk$$
Log volume (unknown)
Spring free energy
Accuracy within a single basin
\(128\) particles
\(d_l = 255 \)
Distance from minimum
Accuracy
Most basin volume
Distance from minimum
Radial Density of Basin
Optimizer accuracy
Density
FIRE
CVODE
Take CVODE samples and minimize with FIRE
Accuracy within a single basin
\(128\) particles
\(d_l = 255 \)
Distance from minimum
Accuracy
Most basin volume
Distance from minimum
Radial Density of Basin
Optimizer accuracy
Density
FIRE
CVODE
Volumes of basins
\(F_0 = - \ln V \)
Counting by sampling
\(d\)
$$ N_{buildings} = \frac{L}{\langle\mathcal{d}\rangle} $$
Counting by sampling
$$ N_{packings} = \frac{V_{space}}{\langle v_{basin} \rangle} $$
- Choose a random initial condition
- Let the system relax
Stable packings are minima of the potential
Basin arrangements: 2d
Martiniani, Stefano, and Mathias Casiulis. "When you can’t count, sample! Computable entropies beyond equilibrium from basin volumes." Papers in Physics 15 (2023).
Basin arrangements
Martiniani, Stefano, and Mathias Casiulis. "When you can’t count, sample! Computable entropies beyond equilibrium from basin volumes." Papers in Physics 15 (2023).
3d basin hierarchy: FIRE
Summary
- Basins are inaccurately identified with optimizer-based methods
- This can lead to situations where results are affected
- Next steps: Accumulate basin statistics to get a better understanding of basin hierarchy
Acknowledgments
Stefano Martiniani
Mathias Casiulis
Martiniani Lab
Fit data
Cubes in high dimensions
Casiulis et al. Papers in Physics 15 (2023): 150001-150001.
Most volume
Energy Landscapes in one dimension
\(V(x)\)
\(x\)
$$ \frac{\text{d} x}{\text{d} t} = - \nabla V(x)$$
steepest descent
basin 2
Basin Tiling (What we're interested in)
basin 1
basin 3
Can we do better?: Mixed Descent
- Start with the CVODE solver
Basin identification
$$ \frac{\text{d} x}{\text{d} t} = - \nabla V(x)$$
steepest descent
- Solving steepest descent in \(nD\) for interacting potentials is hard.
- a large volume of previous work mostly relies on optimization algorithms as proxies for finding basins
Method
- Use CVODE to solve the steepest descent equations
- CVODE is much faster than Gradient descent
- CVODE is much faster than scipy implemented stiff ODE methods
- Identify minima/optimize with pele (https://github.com/martiniani-lab/pele). Hard fork of Wales group code with additional functionality implemented
- Code implemented in basinerror (https://github.com/martiniani-lab/basinerror)
Goals for the talk
- I want to show you how to get basins of attraction in high dimensions accurately
- I want to show you how you can get them fast
Accuracy curves: Harmonic potential (2d)
CVODE: Results
How to get Global Accuracy
- Generate \(N\) steepest descent trajectories to the minima at very low \(rtol\) from random initial conditions
- verify that the minima don't change when you increase \(rtol\) $$\frac{N_\text{incorrect}}{N} < 0.01 $$
\(N\)
\(rtol\)
95 percent accuracy
Accuracy curves: Harmonic potential (2d)
Areas
\(N=128\) \(d_l = 254\)
Polydisperse spheres
A fast and accurate algorithm
CVODE
Mixed Descent
FIRE
LBFGS
LBFGS
Mixed Descent
CVODE
FIRE
Counting by sampling
\(d\)
$$ N_{buildings} = \frac{D}{\langle\mathcal{d}\rangle} $$
Accuracy within a single basin
\(128\) particles
\(d_l = 14 \)
LBFGS
FIRE
Distance from minimum
Accuracy
Most basin volume
Distance from minimum
Radial Density of Basin
Optimizer accuracy
Density
Monday Morning Oct 2025
By Praharsh Suryadevara
