English

Composition-Weighted Symbolic Regression for General-Purpose Property Prediction

Materials Science 2026-05-05 v1 Computational Physics

Abstract

We introduce a composition-weighted symbolic regression framework for interpretable prediction of materials properties directly from chemical composition. The method jointly learns analytical functional forms and task-dependent elemental weightings without predefined descriptors. By incorporating max/min operators, it naturally enforces constraints such as non-negative band gaps and bounded classification probabilities, unifying regression and classification tasks. Efficient search is achieved through a hybrid Monte Carlo tree search--genetic programming algorithm with gradient-based refinement and parallel computation. Benchmarks on MatBench tasks show competitive accuracy relative to state-of-the-art black-box models while yielding explicit analytical expressions. Applied to III--V semiconductor alloys, the model produces smooth composition-dependent trends and learned elemental weights with chemically meaningful periodic behavior. This framework provides a scalable and interpretable route for materials discovery and property screening.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.02267,
  title  = {Composition-Weighted Symbolic Regression for General-Purpose Property Prediction},
  author = {Yang Huang and Jingrun Chen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.02267},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

8 pages, 4 figures and 1 table

R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:48:03.052Z