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Embedding Symbolic Equivalence into Symbolic Regression via Equality Graph (arxiv.org)
3 points by ahsillyme 326 days ago | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: When hunting for equations that fit data, many differently written formulas mean the same thing; this system groups them into one shared form so the search skips duplicates. It works with several equation-finding approaches and consistently finds more accurate formulas in the same time.

Abstract · EGG-SR: Embedding Symbolic Equivalence into Symbolic Regression via Equality Graph

Symbolic regression seeks to uncover physical laws from experimental data by searching for closed-form expressions, which is an important task in AI-driven scientific discovery. Yet the exponential growth of the search space of expression renders the task computationally challenging. A promising yet underexplored direction for reducing the search space and accelerating training lies in *symbolic equivalence*: many expressions, although syntactically different, define the same function -- for example, $\log(x_1^2x_2^3)$, $\log(x_1^2)+\log(x_2^3)$, and $2\log(x_1)+3\log(x_2)$. Existing algorithms treat such variants as distinct outputs, leading to redundant exploration and slow learning. We introduce EGG-SR, a unified framework that integrates symbolic equivalence into a class of modern symbolic regression methods, including Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS), Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), and Large Language Models (LLMs). EGG-SR compactly represents equivalent expressions through the proposed EGG module (via equality graphs), accelerating learning by: (1) pruning redundant subtree exploration in EGG-MCTS, (2) aggregating rewards across equivalent generated sequences in EGG-DRL, and (3) enriching feedback prompts in EGG-LLM. Theoretically, we show the benefit of embedding EGG into learning: it tightens the regret bound of MCTS and reduces the variance of the DRL gradient estimator. Empirically, EGG-SR consistently enhances a class of symbolic regression models across several benchmarks, discovering more accurate expressions within the same time limit. Project page is at: https://nan-jiang-group.github.io/egg-sr.

Nan Jiang, Ziyi Wang, Yexiang Xue
arXiv:2511.05849 · cs.SC, cs.AI, cs.LG · submitted Nov 8, 2025 · updated Feb 12, 2026
abstract · pdf · html · Camera-ready version accepted for ICLR 2026

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