Gaussian process regression constrained by boundary value problems

Abstract

We develop a framework for Gaussian processes regression constrained by boundary value problems. The framework may be applied to infer the solution of a well-posed boundary value problem with a known second-order differential operator and boundary conditions, but for which only scattered observations of the source term are available. Scattered observations of the solution may also be used in the regression. The framework combines co-kriging with the linear transformation of a Gaussian process together with the use of kernels given by spectral expansions in eigenfunctions of the boundary value problem. Thus, it benefits from a reduced-rank property of covariance matrices. We demonstrate that the resulting framework yields more accurate and stable solution inference as compared to physics-informed Gaussian process regression without boundary condition constraints.