Variational learning of energy-stable macroscopic flow equations from microscopic laws

Abstract

We present a generalized variational approach for constructing energy-stable macroscopic partial differential equations (PDEs) directly from microscopic physical laws. Rather than fitting the PDE evolution for prescribed variables from macroscopic trajectories, we construct an extendable variational structure by adjoining auxiliary variables to seek autonomous reduced dynamics in an enlarged state space. By defining these variables as micro--macro encoders with explicit microscopic counterparts, we cast the learning problem as the sample-wise joint identification of the reduced state representation and the variational ingredients from time-discrete data, enabling systematic law-level transfer across scales. The resulting PDEs preserve frame indifference, physical constraints, and energy stability by construction, and admit a fluctuation--dissipation-consistent stochastic extension. Numerical results for the non-Newtonian hydrodynamics of polymeric fluids show that the learned models capture the viscoelastic responses induced by nonlinear and heterogeneous molecular interactions beyond empirical closures.