Application Of Support Vector Machines To Global Prediction Of Nuclear Properties

Advances in statistical learning theory present the opportunity to develop statistical models of quantum many-body systems exhibiting remarkable predictive power. The potential of such ``theory-thin'' approaches is illustrated with the application of Support Vector Machines (SVMs) to global prediction of nuclear properties as functions of proton and neutron numbers $Z$ and $N$ across the nuclidic chart. Based on the principle of structural-risk minimization, SVMs learn from examples in the existing database of a given property $Y$, automatically and optimally identify a set of ``support vectors'' corresponding to representative nuclei in the training set, and approximate the mapping $(Z,N) \to Y$ in terms of these nuclei. Results are reported for nuclear masses, beta-decay lifetimes, and spins/parities of nuclear ground states. These results indicate that SVM models can match or even surpass the predictive performance of the best conventional ``theory-thick'' global models based on nuclear phenomenology.