Why Multi-Layer Message Passing Works: Completeness Theory for Graph Neural Network Interatomic Potentials
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Computer Science > Machine Learning
arXiv:2609.00528 (cs)
[Submitted on 1 Sep 2026]
Title:Why Multi-Layer Message Passing Works: Completeness Theory for Graph Neural Network Interatomic Potentials
View a PDF of the paper titled Why Multi-Layer Message Passing Works: Completeness Theory for Graph Neural Network Interatomic Potentials, by Pingbing Ming and 1 other authors
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Abstract:We prove that the Hypergraph Neural Network, an invariant architecture with 3-body message passing, is a universal approximator for potential energy surfaces. Our main contribution is a multi-layer completeness theory. We show that $L$ layers of message passing on sparse, cutoff-based graphs achieve the same representational power as having access to the full $L$-hop neighborhood, provided the configurations are generic, satisfy an overlap condition and a connectivity condition. This provides the first rigorous justification for the common practice of using multi-layer message passing with a per-layer cutoff smaller than the physical interaction range, the setting used by virtually all practical graph neural network based machine-learned interatomic potentials. As immediate consequences, we show that both DPA3 and CHGNet architectures inherit universal approximation.
| Subjects: | Machine Learning (cs.LG); Mathematical Physics (math-ph); Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph); Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph) |
| Cite as: | arXiv:2609.00528 [cs.LG] |
| (or arXiv:2609.00528v1 [cs.LG] for this version) | |
| https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.00528
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
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View a PDF of the paper titled Why Multi-Layer Message Passing Works: Completeness Theory for Graph Neural Network Interatomic Potentials, by Pingbing Ming and 1 other authors
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