An overview on deep learning-based approximation methods for partial differential equations

It is one of the most challenging problems in applied mathematics to approximatively solve high-dimensional partial differential equations (PDEs). Recently, several deep learning-based approximation algorithms for attacking this problem have been proposed and tested numerically on a number of examples of high-dimensional PDEs. This has given rise to a lively field of research in which deep learning-based methods and related Monte Carlo methods are applied to the approximation of high-dimensional PDEs. In this article we offer an introduction to this field of research, we review some of the main ideas of deep learning-based approximation methods for PDEs, we revisit one of the central mathematical results for deep neural network approximations for PDEs, and we provide an overview of the recent literature in this area of research.