AIRES: AI for Rare Event Search

AIRES Lab · PI: Aobo Li · UC SAN DIEGO aol002@ucsd.edu
Nature is full of incredible Rare Physics Events that we want to study, but nature doesn't speak English. To search for these rare events, we must encode messages of nature into experimental data and subsequently decode them to unlock new physics and propel fundamental scientific understanding forward. My group delve into the realm of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a conduit for deciphering nature's messages. To delve deeper into our work, I invite you to explore the Research tab on the left and also peruse this interview article.
My Scientific/programmer profiles:
News:
  • Our new paper TIDMAD: Time Series Dataset for Discovering Dark Matter with AI Denoising has been submitted to NeurIPS 2024 Dataset & Benchmarking Track! Please check out our manuscript at this Link.
  • Sophie Wang has started as an summer research intern at Tsing-Hua University. Congratulations Sophie! She will work with Dr. Benda Xu on liquid scintillator event fitting.
  • Eugene Ku has started as an Postbaccalaureate Research at Argonne National Lab. Congratulations Eugene! He will work with Dr. Varuni Sastry on deploying Vision Transformer at scale.
  • Sonata Simonaitis-Boyd will start as a new PhD student at HDSI in fall 2024, Congratulations Sonata! She has also joined A3D3 NSF HDR institute as a trainee affiliates.
  • Aobo Li was invited to deliver plenry talk on the Conference of Science at Sanford Underground Research Facilities (CoSSURF) 2024! The talk title is Pushing Rare Event Search to the Limit with Machine Learning Algorithms.
  • Aobo Li was invited to deliver plenry talk on the The 22nd International Workshop on Advanced Computing and Analysis Techniques in Physics Research! The talk title is Detecting Rare Events Using Artificial Intelligence.Link
  • Aobo Li was invited to A3D3 seminar at A3D3 NSF Harnessing Data Revolution Insittute! The colloquium title is Fast and Slow: AI in Rare Event Search.Link
  • Aobo Li hosted the AI in Nuclear Physics Experiment workshop at 2023 APS DNP-JPS Joint Meeting! 6 machine learning experts are invited to showcase their work.
  • Jessica T. Fry's paper was accepted by NeurIPS 2023 Machine Learning for Physical Science Workshop. The paper tile is "Long Time Series Data Release from Broadband Axion Dark Matter Experiment". Congratz Jessica! Link
  • Aobo Li was invited to give physics colloquium at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology!
  • Majorana Demonstrator has released its calibration data for AI/ML benchmarking purpose. These data are labeled short time series data produced by High-Purity Germanium (HPGe) Detector arrays. These data are accessible in HDF5 format here. For more information, please read the data release note.
  • Katharina Kilgus (U. Tuebingen, GeM group) will start summer summer research projects at UNC, under the joint mentor of Aobo Li and Julieta Gruszko. This trip is funded by German Reinhardt Frank-Stifung Foundation.
  • Aobo Li was invited to give physics division seminar at Argonne National Laboratory!
  • Aobo Li was invited to give panel talk in Carolina Data Science Now! Link
  • Henry Nachman (UNC, GeM group) graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with highest honor, congratulations Henry!
  • Bounds from KamLAND-Zen on neutrinoless double-beta decay begin to probe the heart of neutrino mass inverted hierarchy parameter space! Link    Feature Article in Physics
  • KamNet has helped KamLAND-Zen reach the world's most sensitive search for 0𝑣ββ! Link

Research

Click here for selected publications

Nature

Encoder

Decoder

Self-Supervised Learning (SSL)

By training on large, unlabelled datasets, SSL models acquire a task-agnostic representation of detector data. Key for unlocking the "ChatGPT" of particle physics experiments.

Hardware-AI Codesign

Design and deploy cutting-edge machine learning models onto the next-generation data acquisition board, aiming at empower KamLAND-Zen with in-situ position reconstruction capabilities and real-time detector control functionality.

Reinforcement Learning

Using reinforcement learning to achieve weakly supervised classification of the energy spectrum or to control a robotic arm for detector characterization!

Physics Data Release for AI/ML

Releasing real neutrino and dark matter detector data to the public, allowing core AI algorithms to extract the signal and produce real physics results thereby advancing fundamental science!

GeM Group

The Germanium Machine Learning (GeM) Group within the LEGEND collaboration, leverages efficient and interpretable AI to aid all aspects of LEGEND analysis while educating domestic and international collaborators to gain AI experiences.

Physics



Group Members


Awards


Teaching


Appointment

Assistant Professor, Chancellor's Joint Initiative

Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute & Department of Physics
UC San Diego
Sept. 2023 - Present

CoSMS Fellow

UNC Chapel Hill

Advisor: Julieta Gruszko

Sept. 2020 - Aug. 2023

Education

Sept. 2015 - Sept. 2020

University of Washington, Seattle

Bachelor of Science
Major: Physics

Advisor: Jason Detwiler

Sept. 2011 - June 2015
IP Address