Descriptor-free unsupervised learning method for local structure identification in particle packings

Abstract

Local structure identification is of great importance in many scientific and engineering fields. However, mathematical and supervised learning methods mostly rely on specific descriptors of local structures and can only be applied to particular packing configurations. In this work, we propose an improved unsupervised learning method, which is descriptor-free, for local structure identification in particle packing. The point cloud is used as the input of the improved method, which directly comes from spatial positions of particles and does not rely on specific descriptors. The improved method constructs an autoencoder based on the point cloud network combined with Gaussian mixture models for dimension reduction and clustering. Numerical examples show that the improved method performs well in local structure identification of quasicrystal disk and sphere packings, achieving comparable accuracy with previous methods. For disordered packings, which have been considered having nearly no local structures, the improved method identifies a nontrivial seven-neighbor motif in the maximally dense random packing of disks and finds acentric structural motifs in the random close packing of spheres, which demonstrate the ability on identification of new and unknown local structures. The improved unsupervised learning method would help obtain information from massive simulation and experimental results as well as devising new order parameters for particle packings.