Title Information
Title
AI Parameter Inference for the Epoch of Reionization: Addressing Issues of Model Generalizability and Interpretability
Type of Resource (primo)
dissertations
Name: Personal
Name Part
Solt, Jasper
Role
Role Term: Text
creator
Name: Personal
Name Part
Pober, Jonathan
Role
Role Term: Text
Advisor
Name: Personal
Name Part
Bach, Stephen
Role
Role Term: Text
Advisor
Name: Personal
Name Part
Dell'Antonio, Ian
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Corporate
Name Part
Brown University. Department of Physics
Role
Role Term: Text
sponsor
Origin Information
Copyright Date
2026
Physical Description
Extent
xviii, 73 p.
digitalOrigin
born digital
Note: thesis
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2026
Genre (aat)
theses
Abstract
The 21cm signal of neutral hydrogen contains a wealth of information about the poorly constrained era of cosmological history, the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). Recently, AI models trained on EoR simulations have gained significant attention as a powerful and flexible option for inferring parameters from 21cm observations. However, previous works show that AI models trained on data from one simulator fail to generalize to data from another, raising doubts about AI models' ability to accurately infer parameters from observation. We develop a new strategy for training AI models on cosmological simulations based on the principle that increasing the diversity of the training dataset improves model robustness by averaging out spurious and contradictory information. We train AI models on data from different combinations of four simulators, then compare the models' performance when predicting on data from held-out simulators acting as proxies for the real universe. We find that models trained on data from multiple simulators perform better on data from a held-out simulator than models trained on data from a single simulator, indicating that increasing the diversity of the training dataset improves a model's ability to generalize. This result suggests that future EoR parameter inference methods can mitigate simulator-specific bias by incorporating multiple simulation approaches into their analyses. Finally, we explore counterfactual explanations as a possible method of interpretation and data augmentation for AI models.
Subject
Topic
Machine Learning
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/00880600")
Topic
Cosmology
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/00817247")
Topic
Artificial intelligence
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/01087196")
Topic
Radio astronomy
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/02002936")
Topic
Epoch of reionization
Language
Language Term (ISO639-2B)
English
Note: funding
The author acknowledges support from U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) awards 2106510 and 2509340. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Record Information
Record Content Source (marcorg)
RPB
Record Creation Date (encoding="iso8601")
20260516
Identifier: DOI
10.26300/f49m-v396