Quantitative Approximation for Neural Operators in Nonlinear Parabolic Equations

Neural operators serve as universal approximators for general continuous operators. In this paper, we derive the approximation rate of solution operators for the nonlinear parabolic partial differential equations (PDEs), contributing to the quantitative approximation theorem for solution operators of nonlinear PDEs. Our results show that neural operators can efficiently approximate these solution operators without the exponential growth in model complexity, thus strengthening the theoretical foundation of neural operators. A key insight in our proof is to transfer PDEs into the corresponding integral equations via Duahamel's principle, and to leverage the similarity between neural operators and Picard’s iteration—a classical algorithm for solving PDEs. This approach is potentially generalizable beyond parabolic PDEs to a class of PDEs which can be solved by Picard's iteration.