Machine learning the nuclear mass

Background: The masses of about 2500 nuclei have been measured experimentally, however more than 7000 isotopes are predicted to exist in the nuclear landscape from H (Z=1) to Og (Z=118) based on various theoretical calculations. Exploring the mass of the remains is a hot topic in nuclear physics. Machine learning has been served as a powerful tool in learning complex representations of big data in many fields. Purpose: We use Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM) which is a highly efficient machine learning algorithm to predict the masses of unknown nuclei and to explore the nuclear landscape in neutron-rich side from learning the measured nuclear masses. Results: By using the experimental data of 80 percent of known nuclei as the training dataset, the root mean square deviation (RMSD) between the predicted and the experimental binding energy of the remaining 20% is about 0.234 MeV, 0.213 MeV, 0.170 MeV, and 0.222 MeV for the LightGBM-refined LDM, DZ, WS4, and FRDM models, respectively. These values are of about 90%, 65%, 40%, and 60% smaller than the corresponding origin mass models. The RMSD for 66 newly measured nuclei that appeared in AME2020 is also significantly improved on the same foot. One-neutron and two-neutron separation energies predicted by these refined models are in consistence with several theoretical predictions based on various physical models. Conclusions: LightGBM can be used to refine theoretical nuclear mass models so as to predict the binding energy of unknown nuclei. Moreover, the correlation between the input characteristic quantities and the output can be interpreted by SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP, a popular explainable artificial intelligence tool), this may provide new insights on developing theoretical nuclear mass models.