A multiscale neural network based on hierarchical nested bases

In recent years, deep learning has led to impressive results in many fields. In this paper, we introduce a multiscale artificial neural network for high-dimensional nonlinear maps based on the idea of hierarchical nested bases in the fast multipole method and the \(\mathcal {H}^2\)-matrices. This approach allows us to efficiently approximate discretized nonlinear maps arising from partial differential equations or integral equations. It also naturally extends our recent work based on the generalization of hierarchical matrices (Fan et al. arXiv:1807.01883), but with a reduced number of parameters. In particular, the number of parameters of the neural network grows linearly with the dimension of the parameter space of the discretized PDE. We demonstrate the properties of the architecture by approximating the solution maps of nonlinear Schrodinger equation, the radiative transfer equation and the Kohn–Sham map.