Identifying equivalent Calabi--Yau topologies: A discrete challenge from math and physics for machine learning

We present a pedagogical introduction to the recent advances in the computational geometry, physical implications, and data science of Calabi-Yau manifolds. Aimed at the beginning research student and using Calabi-Yau spaces as an exciting play-ground, we intend to teach some mathematics to the budding physicist, some physics to the budding mathematician, and some machine-learning to both. Based on various lecture series, colloquia and seminars given by the author in the past...

Hodge numbers of Calabi-Yau manifolds depend non-trivially on the underlying manifold data and they present an interesting challenge for machine learning. In this letter we consider the data set of complete intersection Calabi-Yau four-folds, a set of about 900,000 topological types, and study supervised learning of the Hodge numbers h^1,1 and h^3,1 for these manifolds. We find that h^1,1 can be successfully learned (to 96% precision) by fully connected classifier and regress...

In these lecture notes, we survey the landscape of Calabi-Yau threefolds, and the use of machine learning to explore it. We begin with the compact portion of the landscape, focusing in particular on complete intersection Calabi-Yau varieties (CICYs) and elliptic fibrations. Non-compact Calabi-Yau manifolds are manifest in Type II superstring theories, they arise as representation varieties of quivers, used to describe gauge theories in the bulk familiar four dimensions. Final...

We revisit the classic database of weighted-P4s which admit Calabi-Yau 3-fold hypersurfaces equipped with a diverse set of tools from the machine-learning toolbox. Unsupervised techniques identify an unanticipated almost linear dependence of the topological data on the weights. This then allows us to identify a previously unnoticed clustering in the Calabi-Yau data. Supervised techniques are successful in predicting the topological parameters of the hypersurface from its weig...

The latest techniques from Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines (SVM) are used to investigate geometric properties of Complete Intersection Calabi-Yau (CICY) threefolds, a class of manifolds that facilitate string model building. An advanced neural network classifier and SVM are employed to (1) learn Hodge numbers and report a remarkable improvement over previous efforts, (2) query for favourability, and (3) predict discrete symmetries, a highly imbalanced problem to w...

We review advancements in deep learning techniques for complete intersection Calabi-Yau (CICY) 3- and 4-folds, with the aim of understanding better how to handle algebraic topological data with machine learning. We first discuss methodological aspects and data analysis, before describing neural networks architectures. Then, we describe the state-of-the art accuracy in predicting Hodge numbers. We include new results on extrapolating predictions from low to high Hodge numbers,...

With a bird's-eye view, we survey the landscape of Calabi-Yau threefolds, compact and non-compact, smooth and singular. Emphasis will be placed on the algorithms and databases which have been established over the years, and how they have been useful in the interaction between the physics and the mathematics, especially in string and gauge theories. A skein which runs through this review will be algorithmic and computational algebraic geometry and how, implementing its princip...

Using a fully connected feedforward neural network we study topological invariants of a class of Calabi--Yau manifolds constructed as hypersurfaces in toric varieties associated with reflexive polytopes from the Kreuzer--Skarke database. In particular, we find the existence of a simple expression for the Euler number that can be learned in terms of limited data extracted from the polytope and its dual.

We briefly overview how, historically, string theory led theoretical physics first to precise problems in algebraic and differential geometry, and thence to computational geometry in the last decade or so, and now, in the last few years, to data science. Using the Calabi-Yau landscape -- accumulated by the collaboration of physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists over the last 4 decades -- as a starting-point and concrete playground, we review some recent progress i...

Calabi-Yau links are specific $S^1$-fibrations over Calabi-Yau manifolds, when the link is 7-dimensional they exhibit both Sasakian and G2 structures. In this invited contribution to the DANGER proceedings, previous work exhaustively computing Calabi-Yau links and selected topological properties is summarised. Machine learning of these properties inspires new conjectures about their computation, as well as the respective Gr\"obner bases.