Paper Detail
Juncheng Zhong, Chenghuang Shen, Jianfeng Liu, Zhengdong Xiao, Longjiu Luo, Qianrong Wang, Wenjun Xu, Wenlian Lu
PDE discovery from sparse observations requires reconstructing a continuous field and selecting the correct differential terms. Our analysis of optimization paths in coupled neural PDE discovery reveals three behaviors: the exact support can persist to the end of training, appear only transiently, or fail to emerge. To decouple equation selection from neural optimization, we develop a freeze-then-select method combining a structured field adapter with Stability-Validated Weak Selection (SVWS). Trained from observations without a PDE residual, the adapter factorizes the field into learned spatial features and temporal coefficients represented by cubic splines. After freezing the field, SVWS identifies recurrent terms across independent weak-form systems, refits candidate supports, and selects the final equation on held-out weak-form systems. Beyond fixed libraries, we apply the same principle to expressions generated by genetic programming and recover the power-law form of an unknown nonlinear diffusion function from sparse, noisy observations. Across all six sparse MDBench regimes, our method attains the highest exact support recovery rate, with its clearest gains over classical and neural baselines on challenging Kuramoto-Sivashinsky dynamics.
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@article{zhong2026freeze,
title = {Freeze, Then Select: Structured Field Adapters and Stability-Validated Weak Selection for PDE Discovery from Sparse Observations},
author = {Juncheng Zhong and Chenghuang Shen and Jianfeng Liu and Zhengdong Xiao and Longjiu Luo and Qianrong Wang and Wenjun Xu and Wenlian Lu},
year = {2026},
abstract = {PDE discovery from sparse observations requires reconstructing a continuous field and selecting the correct differential terms. Our analysis of optimization paths in coupled neural PDE discovery reveals three behaviors: the exact support can persist to the end of training, appear only transiently, or fail to emerge. To decouple equation selection from neural optimization, we develop a freeze-then-select method combining a structured field adapter with Stability-Validated Weak Selection (SVWS). T},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.29665},
keywords = {cs.LG, math.NA},
eprint = {2607.29665},
archiveprefix = {arXiv},
}
{}