Brilliance: an AI agent designs a fourth-generation synchrotron light source entirely on its own

Based on a single instruction, this agent – which combines an LLM, knowledge of physics and simulations – designs a ring with an emittance of less than 10 pm and recalibrates the model of a real-world facility.

In accelerator physics, digital research requires a permanent flow between simulation and interpretation, which involves a lot of expert time. Researchers present Brilliance, a research officer who combines large language models, a reusable knowledge base in physics, and numerical simulation tools to conduct investigations that adapt to their own results.

With a single starting instruction, the agent designed a fourth-generation synchrotron light source that met both the combined requirements of emittance and non-linear acceptability. By pushing the exploration, it resulted in a design combining an emittance of less than 10 picometers and a large dynamic opening under realistic engineering constraints, a track towards hard X-ray beams limited by diffraction. The objective of acceptance in impulse was not achieved.

Brilliance also recalculated the model of an in-service light source from its measured responses, finding the magnetic structure and calibration errors correctly. In particular, the authors note that the officer himself revises his calculation strategy in the light of numerical results, which in their view opens the way for long-term scientific investigations by agents.