Diffusion-based Models for Unpaired Super-resolution in Fluid Dynamics

High-fidelity, high-resolution numerical simulations are crucial for studying complex multiscale phenomena in fluid dynamics, such as turbulent flows and ocean waves. However, direct numerical simulations with high-resolution solvers are computationally prohibitive. As an alternative, super-resolution techniques enable the enhancement of low-fidelity, low-resolution simulations. However, traditional super-resolution approaches rely on paired low-fidelity, low-resolution and high-fidelity, high-resolution datasets for training, which are often impossible to acquire in complex flow systems. To address this challenge, we propose a novel two-step approach that eliminates the need for paired datasets. First, we perform unpaired domain translation at the low-resolution level using an Enhanced Denoising Diffusion Implicit Bridge. This process transforms low-fidelity, low-resolution inputs into high-fidelity, low-resolution outputs, and we provide a theoretical analysis to highlight the advantages of this enhanced diffusion-based approach. Second, we employ the cascaded Super-Resolution via Repeated Refinement model to upscale the high-fidelity, low-resolution prediction to the high-resolution result. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach across three fluid dynamics problems. Moreover, by incorporating a neural operator to learn system dynamics, our method can be extended to improve evolutionary simulations of low-fidelity, low-resolution data.