Update of PHYSBO: Improving Usability and Portability of Bayesian Optimization for Physics and Materials Research

Yuichi Motoyama; Kazuyoshi Yoshimi; Tatsumi Aoyama; Kei Terayama; Koji Tsuda; Ryo Tamura

Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2603.01349

Update of PHYSBO: Improving Usability and Portability of Bayesian Optimization for Physics and Materials Research

Yuichi Motoyama·Kazuyoshi Yoshimi·Tatsumi Aoyama·Kei Terayama·Koji Tsuda·Ryo Tamura

View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Bayesian optimization (BO) is widely used to accelerate physics and materials research, where objective function evaluations are computationally or experimentally expensive. While many BO frameworks focus on algorithmic efficiency, practical usability and portability are equally critical for sustained use in real research environments. PHYSBO is a Bayesian optimization library designed to address these needs by enabling optimization over user-defined candidate pools and by supporting domain-specific problem settings. This paper presents the major updates introduced in PHYSBO versions 2 and 3, with a focus on improvements in usability, portability, and practical deployment rather than on new optimization algorithms. In PHYSBO version 2, the software license was changed from GPL to MPL to improve compatibility with a wider range of research and software ecosystems. Building on this revision, PHYSBO version 3 introduces a set of implementation-oriented updates aimed at improving usability and portability, without modifying the core optimization algorithms. These updates include improvements in computational performance and scalability, extended support for multi-objective optimization, the introduction of range-based policies for continuous-variable optimization, the removal of environment-dependent components such as tightly coupled Cython modules, and compatibility with NumPy 2. These improvements reduce the technical and organizational burden on users, enabling PHYSBO to be deployed across diverse computing environments and research workflows. By emphasizing portability and ease of integration while maintaining sufficient performance, PHYSBO version 3 is positioned as a sustainable research infrastructure for Bayesian optimization in physics and materials science.

Explore related subjects

physics.comp-ph cond-mat.mtrl-sci

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeX RIS

Yuichi Motoyama, Kazuyoshi Yoshimi, Tatsumi Aoyama, Kei Terayama, Koji Tsuda, Ryo Tamura. 2026-03-02. Update of PHYSBO: Improving Usability and Portability of Bayesian Optimization for Physics and Materials Research. https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.01349

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

A subcell-refined entropy-residual-driven limiting strategy for high-order discontinuous Galerkin methods

Fine-grained, subcell-level dissipation control is essential for achieving robust high-order discontinuous Galerkin (DG) simulations of nonlinear hyperbolic systems in under-resolved regimes while preserving accuracy. This paper proposes a subcell-refined entropy-residual-driven limiting strategy for DG on Legendre-Gauss-Lobatto nodes. The limiter introduces only nearest-neighbor pairwise dissipation within each element, with closed-form coefficients that supply the minimal dissipation required to restore the element entropy inequality. The strategy is a diagonal, locally stable approximation of classical entropy-stable methods, and a generalized subcell framework reveals split-form DG and residual-distribution-based entropy correction schemes as particular choices of the limiting coefficients. For the Euler equations, a physically consistent jump operator separately models thermal and shear entropy production while preserving velocity and pressure equilibrium; a subcell refinement of the Zhang-Shu positivity limiter ensures pointwise positivity. Extensive numerical tests confirm that the scheme maintains optimal high-order accuracy, strictly enforces entropy dissipation, and significantly reduces the difficulty of a posteriori positivity-preserving procedures.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2026

VNS Tokamak for Medical Isotope Production

The Volumetric Neutron Source (VNS) tokamak is a proposed fusion reactor for testing components under fusion neutron irradiation, and has potential use for radioisotope production. The VNS geometry is modeled in the Serpent 2.2.2 and OpenMC 0.15.2 neutronics codes. Coupled neutron-photon simulations compared fluxes, spectra, and selected reaction rates in the blanket and vacuum vessel. Good agreement was found overall, with the largest difference found in (n, 2n) reactions. On an HPC cluster, Serpent 2 was found to have shorter computation time in coupled simulations, while OpenMC was faster in neutron only simulations. Radioisotope production yields were simulated in Serpent 2.2.2 for capsule and Cobalt plate irradiation facilities. Results indicate potential for large volume production of 99Mo, 131I, 225Ac, 177Lu, 192Ir, 64Cu, 67Cu, 161Tb, and 153Sm while 203Pb indicates lower potential. 100Mo and LEU target heating was calculated, suggesting the LEU target mass or the cooling may need adjustment. Optimized 60Co production yielded 1.2 GBq/mg and 100,000 TBq after a 3-year irradiation period. Sensitivity to plant outage for 99Mo, 131I, 177Lu, and 60Co was simulated, suggesting irradiation can be restarted for the same isotope loading and demonstrated long-lived 60Co to be robust to long plant dwell-time.

physics.comp-ph↗

arXiv2026

MadVfold: accelerating NLO event generation and reducing negative weights with SIMD vectorization and GPUs

NLO simulations are essential for LHC physics analyses but are expensive, as they are not only slow but also lead to negative weights, which imply the need to simulate much larger samples of events. Folding is a powerful technique to reduce negative weights but is itself expensive. In this paper I propose ``vectorized folding'' as a new idea to speed up these calculations using SIMD and GPUs, and I present its CUDACPP-based implementation for MG5aMC in MadVfold, including its extension for unfolded NLO event generation. Preliminary results show overall speedups around 6x to 9x with folding and 3x without it. This work is based on a test-centric, LLM-assisted software development process.

physics.comp-ph↗