The Well: a Large-Scale Collection of Diverse Physics Simulations for Machine Learning

Ruben Ohana, Michael McCabe, Lucas Thibaut Meyer, Rudy Morel, Fruzsina Julia Agocs, Miguel Beneitez, Marsha Berger, Blakesley Burkhart, Stuart B. Dalziel, Drummond Buschman Fielding, Daniel Fortunato, Jared A. Goldberg, Keiya Hirashima, Yan-Fei Jiang, Rich Kerswell, Suryanarayana Maddu, Jonah M. Miller, Payel Mukhopadhyay, Stefan S. Nixon, Jeff Shen et al. (5 additional authors not shown)

Keywords: numerical simulations, fluid-dynamics, partial differential equations, operator learning

TL;DR: We introduce a large-scale scientific quality dataset of numerical physics simulations for machine learning purposes.

Abstract: Machine learning (ML) based surrogate models offer researchers powerful tools for accelerating simulation-based workflows. However, as standard datasets in this space often cover small classes of physical behavior, it can be difficult to evaluate the efficacy of new approaches. To address this gap, we introduce \emph{the Well:} a large-scale collection of datasets containing numerical simulations of a wide variety of spatiotemporal physical systems. The Well draws from domain scientists and numerical software developers to provide 15TB of data across 16 datasets covering diverse domains such as biological systems, fluid dynamics, acoustic scattering, as well as magneto-hydrodynamic simulations of extra-galactic fluids or supernova explosions. These datasets can be used individually or as part of a broader benchmark suite. To facilitate usage of the Well, we provide a unified PyTorch interface for training and evaluating models. We demonstrate the function of this library by introducing example baselines that highlight the new challenges poses by the complex dynamics of the Well.

Submission Number: 12