Learning continuous reaction paths for transition-state prediction

Abstract: Transition states are defined by reaction pathways, yet most machine-learning methods predict them as isolated geometries. We introduce MARC-TS, a two-stage framework that learns a continuous, endpoint-conditioned path, queries it at any resolution and uses local path context to refine a transition-state candidate. We construct T1x-IRC-8K, a dataset of 8,209 reactions and 1,088,725 path-resolved geometries. On held-out reactions, the path model reduced complete-path error by 48.4% relative to endpoint interpolation, and the localizer achieved a mean aligned structural error of 0.127 Å. Quantum-chemical optimization and vibrational analysis yielded 405 frequency-confirmed first-order saddle-point candidates from 410 predictions. In a 100-reaction nudged elastic band comparison, learned-path initialization reached a joint geometry-and-force target for 66% of reactions, compared with 12% for geometric interpolation after 100 optimizer steps. By treating the path as a reusable representation rather than an auxiliary output, MARC-TS connects transition-state prediction, mechanistic interpretation and quantum-chemical refinement.