A clever neural network in solving inverse problems of Schrödinger equation

In this work, we solve inverse problems of nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equations that can be formulated as a learning process of a special convolutional neural network. Instead of attempting to approximate functions in the inverse problems, we embed a library as a low dimensional manifold in the network such that unknowns can be reduced to some scalars. The nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation (NLSE) is $i\frac{\partial \psi}{\partial t}-\beta\frac{\partial^2 \psi}{\partial x^2}+\gamma|\psi|^2\psi+V(x)\psi=0,$ where the wave function $\psi(x,t)$ is the solution to the forward problem and the potential $V(x)$ is the quantity of interest of the inverse problem. The main contributions of this work come from two aspects. First, we construct a special neural network directly from the Schr\"{o}dinger equation, which is motivated by a splitting method. The physics behind the construction enhances explainability of the neural network. The other part is using a library-search algorithm to project the solution space of the inverse problem to a lower-dimensional space. The way to seek the solution in a reduced approximation space can be traced back to the compressed sensing theory. The motivation of this part is to alleviate the training burden in estimating functions. Instead, with a well-chosen library, one can greatly simplify the training process. A brief analysis is given, which focuses on well-possedness of some mentioned inverse problems and convergence of the neural network approximation. To show the effectiveness of the proposed method, we explore in some representative problems including simple equations and a couple equation. The results can well verify the theory part. In the future, we can further explore manifold learning to enhance the approximation effect of the library-search algorithm.