Predicting the Stability of Hierarchical Triple Systems with Convolutional Neural Networks

Understanding the long-term evolution of hierarchical triple systems is challenging due to its inherent chaotic nature, and it requires computationally expensive simulations. Here we propose a convolutional neural network model to predict the stability of hierarchical triples by looking at their evolution during the first 5 × 105 inner binary orbits. We employ the regularized few-body code TSUNAMI to simulate 5× 106 hierarchical triples, from which we generate a large training and test dataset. We develop twelve different network configurations that use different combinations of the triples' orbital elements and compare their performances. Our best model uses 6 time-series, namely, the semimajor axes ratio, the inner and outer eccentricities, the mutual inclination and the arguments of pericenter. This model achieves an area under the curve of over 95% and informs of the relevant parameters to study triple systems stability. All trained models are made publicly available, allowing to predict the stability of hierarchical triple systems 200 times faster than pure N-body methods.