Transformer-based pulse shape discrimination in hpge detectors with masked autoencoder pre-training

Résumé fourni par la source

Abstract Pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) in high-purity germanium detectors is central to rare-event searches such as neutrinoless double-beta decay ( 0 ν β β ), yet conventional approaches compress each waveform into a small set of summary parameters, potentially discarding information in the full time series that is relevant for classification. We benchmark transformer-based models that operate directly on digitised waveforms using the Majorana Demonstrator AI/ML data release. Models are trained to reproduce the collaboration-provided accept/reject labels for four standard PSD cuts and to regress calibrated energy. We compare supervised training from scratch, masked autoencoder (MAE) self-supervised pre-training followed by fine-tuning, and a feature-based gradient-boosted decision tree (GBDT) baseline. Transformers outperform GBDT across all PSD targets, with the largest gains on the most challenging labels and on the combined PSD-pass definition. MAE pre-training improves sample efficiency, reducing labelled-data requirements by factors of 2–4 in low-label regimes. For energy regression, both transformer variants show a small common underestimation on the test split, while fine-tuning modestly narrows the residual distribution. These results motivate follow-up studies of robustness across detectors and operating conditions and of performance near Q β β .

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