WorldWideScience

Sample records for performed molecular dynamics

  1. High-Performance Modeling of Carbon Dioxide Sequestration by Coupling Reservoir Simulation and Molecular Dynamics

    KAUST Repository

    Bao, Kai; Yan, Mi; Allen, Rebecca; Salama, Amgad; Lu, Ligang; Jordan, Kirk E.; Sun, Shuyu; Keyes, David E.

    2015-01-01

    The present work describes a parallel computational framework for carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration simulation by coupling reservoir simulation and molecular dynamics (MD) on massively parallel high-performance-computing (HPC) systems

  2. Implementing Molecular Dynamics for Hybrid High Performance Computers - 1. Short Range Forces

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brown, W. Michael; Wang, Peng; Plimpton, Steven J.; Tharrington, Arnold N.

    2011-01-01

    The use of accelerators such as general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs) have become popular in scientific computing applications due to their low cost, impressive floating-point capabilities, high memory bandwidth, and low electrical power requirements. Hybrid high performance computers, machines with more than one type of floating-point processor, are now becoming more prevalent due to these advantages. In this work, we discuss several important issues in porting a large molecular dynamics code for use on parallel hybrid machines - (1) choosing a hybrid parallel decomposition that works on central processing units (CPUs) with distributed memory and accelerator cores with shared memory, (2) minimizing the amount of code that must be ported for efficient acceleration, (3) utilizing the available processing power from both many-core CPUs and accelerators, and (4) choosing a programming model for acceleration. We present our solution to each of these issues for short-range force calculation in the molecular dynamics package LAMMPS. We describe algorithms for efficient short range force calculation on hybrid high performance machines. We describe a new approach for dynamic load balancing of work between CPU and accelerator cores. We describe the Geryon library that allows a single code to compile with both CUDA and OpenCL for use on a variety of accelerators. Finally, we present results on a parallel test cluster containing 32 Fermi GPGPUs and 180 CPU cores.

  3. Performance evaluation of the zero-multipole summation method in modern molecular dynamics software.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sakuraba, Shun; Fukuda, Ikuo

    2018-05-04

    The zero-multiple summation method (ZMM) is a cutoff-based method for calculating electrostatic interactions in molecular dynamics simulations, utilizing an electrostatic neutralization principle as a physical basis. Since the accuracies of the ZMM have been revealed to be sufficient in previous studies, it is highly desirable to clarify its practical performance. In this paper, the performance of the ZMM is compared with that of the smooth particle mesh Ewald method (SPME), where the both methods are implemented in molecular dynamics software package GROMACS. Extensive performance comparisons against a highly optimized, parameter-tuned SPME implementation are performed for various-sized water systems and two protein-water systems. We analyze in detail the dependence of the performance on the potential parameters and the number of CPU cores. Even though the ZMM uses a larger cutoff distance than the SPME does, the performance of the ZMM is comparable to or better than that of the SPME. This is because the ZMM does not require a time-consuming electrostatic convolution and because the ZMM gains short neighbor-list distances due to the smooth damping feature of the pairwise potential function near the cutoff length. We found, in particular, that the ZMM with quadrupole or octupole cancellation and no damping factor is an excellent candidate for the fast calculation of electrostatic interactions. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  4. High-performance modeling of CO2 sequestration by coupling reservoir simulation and molecular dynamics

    KAUST Repository

    Bao, Kai

    2013-01-01

    The present work describes a parallel computational framework for CO2 sequestration simulation by coupling reservoir simulation and molecular dynamics (MD) on massively parallel HPC systems. In this framework, a parallel reservoir simulator, Reservoir Simulation Toolbox (RST), solves the flow and transport equations that describe the subsurface flow behavior, while the molecular dynamics simulations are performed to provide the required physical parameters. Numerous technologies from different fields are employed to make this novel coupled system work efficiently. One of the major applications of the framework is the modeling of large scale CO2 sequestration for long-term storage in the subsurface geological formations, such as depleted reservoirs and deep saline aquifers, which has been proposed as one of the most attractive and practical solutions to reduce the CO2 emission problem to address the global-warming threat. To effectively solve such problems, fine grids and accurate prediction of the properties of fluid mixtures are essential for accuracy. In this work, the CO2 sequestration is presented as our first example to couple the reservoir simulation and molecular dynamics, while the framework can be extended naturally to the full multiphase multicomponent compositional flow simulation to handle more complicated physical process in the future. Accuracy and scalability analysis are performed on an IBM BlueGene/P and on an IBM BlueGene/Q, the latest IBM supercomputer. Results show good accuracy of our MD simulations compared with published data, and good scalability are observed with the massively parallel HPC systems. The performance and capacity of the proposed framework are well demonstrated with several experiments with hundreds of millions to a billion cells. To our best knowledge, the work represents the first attempt to couple the reservoir simulation and molecular simulation for large scale modeling. Due to the complexity of the subsurface systems

  5. Scalable Molecular Dynamics for Large Biomolecular Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Robert K. Brunner

    2000-01-01

    Full Text Available We present an optimized parallelization scheme for molecular dynamics simulations of large biomolecular systems, implemented in the production-quality molecular dynamics program NAMD. With an object-based hybrid force and spatial decomposition scheme, and an aggressive measurement-based predictive load balancing framework, we have attained speeds and speedups that are much higher than any reported in literature so far. The paper first summarizes the broad methodology we are pursuing, and the basic parallelization scheme we used. It then describes the optimizations that were instrumental in increasing performance, and presents performance results on benchmark simulations.

  6. A domain specific language for performance portable molecular dynamics algorithms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saunders, William Robert; Grant, James; Müller, Eike Hermann

    2018-03-01

    Developers of Molecular Dynamics (MD) codes face significant challenges when adapting existing simulation packages to new hardware. In a continuously diversifying hardware landscape it becomes increasingly difficult for scientists to be experts both in their own domain (physics/chemistry/biology) and specialists in the low level parallelisation and optimisation of their codes. To address this challenge, we describe a "Separation of Concerns" approach for the development of parallel and optimised MD codes: the science specialist writes code at a high abstraction level in a domain specific language (DSL), which is then translated into efficient computer code by a scientific programmer. In a related context, an abstraction for the solution of partial differential equations with grid based methods has recently been implemented in the (Py)OP2 library. Inspired by this approach, we develop a Python code generation system for molecular dynamics simulations on different parallel architectures, including massively parallel distributed memory systems and GPUs. We demonstrate the efficiency of the auto-generated code by studying its performance and scalability on different hardware and compare it to other state-of-the-art simulation packages. With growing data volumes the extraction of physically meaningful information from the simulation becomes increasingly challenging and requires equally efficient implementations. A particular advantage of our approach is the easy expression of such analysis algorithms. We consider two popular methods for deducing the crystalline structure of a material from the local environment of each atom, show how they can be expressed in our abstraction and implement them in the code generation framework.

  7. Performance of extended Lagrangian schemes for molecular dynamics simulations with classical polarizable force fields and density functional theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vitale, Valerio; Dziedzic, Jacek; Albaugh, Alex; Niklasson, Anders M N; Head-Gordon, Teresa; Skylaris, Chris-Kriton

    2017-03-28

    Iterative energy minimization with the aim of achieving self-consistency is a common feature of Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics (BOMD) and classical molecular dynamics with polarizable force fields. In the former, the electronic degrees of freedom are optimized, while the latter often involves an iterative determination of induced point dipoles. The computational effort of the self-consistency procedure can be reduced by re-using converged solutions from previous time steps. However, this must be done carefully, as not to break time-reversal symmetry, which negatively impacts energy conservation. Self-consistent schemes based on the extended Lagrangian formalism, where the initial guesses for the optimized quantities are treated as auxiliary degrees of freedom, constitute one elegant solution. We report on the performance of two integration schemes with the same underlying extended Lagrangian structure, which we both employ in two radically distinct regimes-in classical molecular dynamics simulations with the AMOEBA polarizable force field and in BOMD simulations with the Onetep linear-scaling density functional theory (LS-DFT) approach. Both integration schemes are found to offer significant improvements over the standard (unpropagated) molecular dynamics formulation in both the classical and LS-DFT regimes.

  8. High-Performance First-Principles Molecular Dynamics for Predictive Theory and Modeling

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gygi, Francois [Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States). Dept. of Computer Science; Galli, Giulia [Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States); Schwegler, Eric [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

    2017-12-03

    This project focused on developing high-performance software tools for First-Principles Molecular Dynamics (FPMD) simulations, and applying them in investigations of materials relevant to energy conversion processes. FPMD is an atomistic simulation method that combines a quantum-mechanical description of electronic structure with the statistical description provided by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. This reliance on fundamental principles allows FPMD simulations to provide a consistent description of structural, dynamical and electronic properties of a material. This is particularly useful in systems for which reliable empirical models are lacking. FPMD simulations are increasingly used as a predictive tool for applications such as batteries, solar energy conversion, light-emitting devices, electro-chemical energy conversion devices and other materials. During the course of the project, several new features were developed and added to the open-source Qbox FPMD code. The code was further optimized for scalable operation of large-scale, Leadership-Class DOE computers. When combined with Many-Body Perturbation Theory (MBPT) calculations, this infrastructure was used to investigate structural and electronic properties of liquid water, ice, aqueous solutions, nanoparticles and solid-liquid interfaces. Computing both ionic trajectories and electronic structure in a consistent manner enabled the simulation of several spectroscopic properties, such as Raman spectra, infrared spectra, and sum-frequency generation spectra. The accuracy of the approximations used allowed for direct comparisons of results with experimental data such as optical spectra, X-ray and neutron diffraction spectra. The software infrastructure developed in this project, as applied to various investigations of solids, liquids and interfaces, demonstrates that FPMD simulations can provide a detailed, atomic-scale picture of structural, vibrational and electronic properties of complex systems

  9. Performance assessment of semiempirical molecular orbital methods in describing halogen bonding: quantum mechanical and quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical-molecular dynamics study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ibrahim, Mahmoud A A

    2011-10-24

    The performance of semiempirical molecular-orbital methods--MNDO, MNDO-d, AM1, RM1, PM3 and PM6--in describing halogen bonding was evaluated, and the results were compared with molecular mechanical (MM) and quantum mechanical (QM) data. Three types of performance were assessed: (1) geometrical optimizations and binding energy calculations for 27 halogen-containing molecules complexed with various Lewis bases (Two of the tested methods, AM1 and RM1, gave results that agree with the QM data.); (2) charge distribution calculations for halobenzene molecules, determined by calculating the solvation free energies of the molecules relative to benzene in explicit and implicit generalized Born (GB) solvents (None of the methods gave results that agree with the experimental data.); and (3) appropriateness of the semiempirical methods in the hybrid quantum-mechanical/molecular-mechanical (QM/MM) scheme, investigated by studying the molecular inhibition of CK2 protein by eight halobenzimidazole and -benzotriazole derivatives using hybrid QM/MM molecular-dynamics (MD) simulations with the inhibitor described at the QM level by the AM1 method and the rest of the system described at the MM level. The pure MM approach with inclusion of an extra point of positive charge on the halogen atom approach gave better results than the hybrid QM/MM approach involving the AM1 method. Also, in comparison with the pure MM-GBSA (generalized Born surface area) binding energies and experimental data, the calculated QM/MM-GBSA binding energies of the inhibitors were improved by replacing the G(GB,QM/MM) solvation term with the corresponding G(GB,MM) term.

  10. A concurrent multiscale micromorphic molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li, Shaofan; Tong, Qi

    2015-01-01

    In this work, we have derived a multiscale micromorphic molecular dynamics (MMMD) from first principle to extend the (Andersen)-Parrinello-Rahman molecular dynamics to mesoscale and continuum scale. The multiscale micromorphic molecular dynamics is a con-current three-scale dynamics that couples a fine scale molecular dynamics, a mesoscale micromorphic dynamics, and a macroscale nonlocal particle dynamics together. By choosing proper statistical closure conditions, we have shown that the original Andersen-Parrinello-Rahman molecular dynamics is the homogeneous and equilibrium case of the proposed multiscale micromorphic molecular dynamics. In specific, we have shown that the Andersen-Parrinello-Rahman molecular dynamics can be rigorously formulated and justified from first principle, and its general inhomogeneous case, i.e., the three scale con-current multiscale micromorphic molecular dynamics can take into account of macroscale continuum mechanics boundary condition without the limitation of atomistic boundary condition or periodic boundary conditions. The discovered multiscale scale structure and the corresponding multiscale dynamics reveal a seamless transition from atomistic scale to continuum scale and the intrinsic coupling mechanism among them based on first principle formulation

  11. Pattern recognition in molecular dynamics. [FORTRAN

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zurek, W H; Schieve, W C [Texas Univ., Austin (USA)

    1977-07-01

    An algorithm for the recognition of the formation of bound molecular states in the computer simulation of a dilute gas is presented. Applications to various related problems in physics and chemistry are pointed out. Data structure and decision processes are described. Performance of the FORTRAN program based on the algorithm in cooperation with the molecular dynamics program is described and the results are presented.

  12. An Evaluation of Molecular Dynamics Performance on the Hybrid Cray XK6 Supercomputer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brown, W. Michael; Nguyen, Trung D.; Fuentes-Cabrera, Miguel A.; Fowlkes, Jason Davidson; Rack, Philip D.; Berger, Mark

    2012-01-01

    For many years, the drive towards computational physics studies that match the size and time-scales of experiment has been fueled by increases in processor and interconnect performance that could be exploited with relatively little modification to existing codes. Engineering and electrical power constraints have disrupted this trend, requiring more drastic changes to both hardware and software solutions. Here, we present details of the Cray XK6 architecture that achieves increased performance with the use of GPU accelerators. We review software development efforts in the LAMMPS molecular dynamics package that have been implemented in order to utilize hybrid high performance computers. We present benchmark results for solid-state, biological, and mesoscopic systems and discuss some challenges for utilizing hybrid systems. We present some early work in improving application performance on the XK6 and performance results for the simulation of liquid copper nanostructures with the embedded atom method.

  13. Ultrafast molecular dynamics illuminated with synchrotron radiation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bozek, John D.; Miron, Catalin

    2015-01-01

    Highlights: • Ultrafast molecular dynamics probed with synchrotron radiation. • Core-excitation as probe of ultrafast dynamics through core-hole lifetime. • Review of experimental and theoretical methods in ultrafast dynamics using core-level excitation. - Abstract: Synchrotron radiation is a powerful tool for studying molecular dynamics in small molecules in spite of the absence of natural matching between the X-ray pulse duration and the time scale of nuclear motion. Promoting core level electrons to unoccupied molecular orbitals simultaneously initiates two ultrafast processes, nuclear dynamics on the potential energy surfaces of the highly excited neutral intermediate state of the molecule on the one hand and an ultrafast electronic decay of the intermediate excited state to a cationic final state, characterized by a core hole lifetime. The similar time scales of these processes enable core excited pump-probe-type experiments to be performed with long duration X-ray pulses from a synchrotron source. Recent results obtained at the PLIEADES beamline concerning ultrafast dissociation of core excited states and molecular potential energy curve mapping facilitated by changes in the geometry of the short-lived intermediate core excited state are reviewed. High brightness X-ray beams combined with state-of-the art electron and ion-electron coincidence spectrometers and highly sophisticated theoretical methods are required to conduct these experiments and to achieve a full understanding of the experimental results.

  14. Dynamics and Thermodynamics of Molecular Machines

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Golubeva, Natalia

    2014-01-01

    to their microscopic size, molecular motors are governed by principles fundamentally different from those describing the operation of man-made motors such as car engines. In this dissertation the dynamic and thermodynamic properties of molecular machines are studied using the tools of nonequilibrium statistical......Molecular machines, or molecular motors, are small biophysical devices that perform a variety of essential metabolic processes such as DNA replication, protein synthesis and intracellular transport. Typically, these machines operate by converting chemical energy into motion and mechanical work. Due...... mechanics. The first part focuses on noninteracting molecular machines described by a paradigmatic continuum model with the aim of comparing and contrasting such a description to the one offered by the widely used discrete models. Many molecular motors, for example, kinesin involved in cellular cargo...

  15. OpenMM 7: Rapid development of high performance algorithms for molecular dynamics.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peter Eastman

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available OpenMM is a molecular dynamics simulation toolkit with a unique focus on extensibility. It allows users to easily add new features, including forces with novel functional forms, new integration algorithms, and new simulation protocols. Those features automatically work on all supported hardware types (including both CPUs and GPUs and perform well on all of them. In many cases they require minimal coding, just a mathematical description of the desired function. They also require no modification to OpenMM itself and can be distributed independently of OpenMM. This makes it an ideal tool for researchers developing new simulation methods, and also allows those new methods to be immediately available to the larger community.

  16. Conformation analysis of trehalose. Molecular dynamics simulation and molecular mechanics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Donnamaira, M.C.; Howard, E.I.; Grigera, J.R.

    1992-09-01

    Conformational analysis of the disaccharide trehalose is done by molecular dynamics and molecular mechanics. In spite of the different force fields used in each case, comparison between the molecular dynamics trajectories of the torsional angles of glycosidic linkage and energy conformational map shows a good agreement between both methods. By molecular dynamics it is observed a moderate mobility of the glycosidic linkage. The demands of computer time is comparable in both cases. (author). 6 refs, 4 figs

  17. AceCloud: Molecular Dynamics Simulations in the Cloud.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harvey, M J; De Fabritiis, G

    2015-05-26

    We present AceCloud, an on-demand service for molecular dynamics simulations. AceCloud is designed to facilitate the secure execution of large ensembles of simulations on an external cloud computing service (currently Amazon Web Services). The AceCloud client, integrated into the ACEMD molecular dynamics package, provides an easy-to-use interface that abstracts all aspects of interaction with the cloud services. This gives the user the experience that all simulations are running on their local machine, minimizing the learning curve typically associated with the transition to using high performance computing services.

  18. High performance computer code for molecular dynamics simulations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Levay, I.; Toekesi, K.

    2007-01-01

    Complete text of publication follows. Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulation is a widely used technique for modeling complicated physical phenomena. Since 2005 we are developing a MD simulations code for PC computers. The computer code is written in C++ object oriented programming language. The aim of our work is twofold: a) to develop a fast computer code for the study of random walk of guest atoms in Be crystal, b) 3 dimensional (3D) visualization of the particles motion. In this case we mimic the motion of the guest atoms in the crystal (diffusion-type motion), and the motion of atoms in the crystallattice (crystal deformation). Nowadays, it is common to use Graphics Devices in intensive computational problems. There are several ways to use this extreme processing performance, but never before was so easy to programming these devices as now. The CUDA (Compute Unified Device) Architecture introduced by nVidia Corporation in 2007 is a very useful for every processor hungry application. A Unified-architecture GPU include 96-128, or more stream processors, so the raw calculation performance is 576(!) GFLOPS. It is ten times faster, than the fastest dual Core CPU [Fig.1]. Our improved MD simulation software uses this new technology, which speed up our software and the code run 10 times faster in the critical calculation code segment. Although the GPU is a very powerful tool, it has a strongly paralleled structure. It means, that we have to create an algorithm, which works on several processors without deadlock. Our code currently uses 256 threads, shared and constant on-chip memory, instead of global memory, which is 100 times slower than others. It is possible to implement the total algorithm on GPU, therefore we do not need to download and upload the data in every iteration. On behalf of maximal throughput, every thread run with the same instructions

  19. Non-periodic molecular dynamics simulations of coarse grained lipid bilayer in water

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kotsalis, E. M.; Hanasaki, I.; Walther, Jens Honore

    2010-01-01

    We present a multiscale algorithm that couples coarse grained molecular dynamics (CGMD) with continuum solver. The coupling requires the imposition of non-periodic boundary conditions on the coarse grained Molecular Dynamics which, when not properly enforced, may result in spurious fluctuations o...... in simulating more complex systems by performing a non-periodic Molecular Dynamics simulation of a DPPC lipid in liquid coarse grained water.......We present a multiscale algorithm that couples coarse grained molecular dynamics (CGMD) with continuum solver. The coupling requires the imposition of non-periodic boundary conditions on the coarse grained Molecular Dynamics which, when not properly enforced, may result in spurious fluctuations...... of the material properties of the system represented by CGMD. In this paper we extend a control algorithm originally developed for atomistic simulations [3], to conduct simulations involving coarse grained water molecules without periodic boundary conditions. We demonstrate the applicability of our method...

  20. Easy GROMACS: A Graphical User Interface for GROMACS Molecular Dynamics Simulation Package

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dizkirici, Ayten; Tekpinar, Mustafa

    2015-03-01

    GROMACS is a widely used molecular dynamics simulation package. Since it is a command driven program, it is difficult to use this program for molecular biologists, biochemists, new graduate students and undergraduate researchers who are interested in molecular dynamics simulations. To alleviate the problem for those researchers, we wrote a graphical user interface that simplifies protein preparation for a classical molecular dynamics simulation. Our program can work with various GROMACS versions and it can perform essential analyses of GROMACS trajectories as well as protein preparation. We named our open source program `Easy GROMACS'. Easy GROMACS can give researchers more time for scientific research instead of dealing with technical intricacies.

  1. Computational challenges of large-scale, long-time, first-principles molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kent, P R C

    2008-01-01

    Plane wave density functional calculations have traditionally been able to use the largest available supercomputing resources. We analyze the scalability of modern projector-augmented wave implementations to identify the challenges in performing molecular dynamics calculations of large systems containing many thousands of electrons. Benchmark calculations on the Cray XT4 demonstrate that global linear-algebra operations are the primary reason for limited parallel scalability. Plane-wave related operations can be made sufficiently scalable. Improving parallel linear-algebra performance is an essential step to reaching longer timescales in future large-scale molecular dynamics calculations

  2. Ab initio molecular dynamics in a finite homogeneous electric field.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Umari, P; Pasquarello, Alfredo

    2002-10-07

    We treat homogeneous electric fields within density functional calculations with periodic boundary conditions. A nonlocal energy functional depending on the applied field is used within an ab initio molecular dynamics scheme. The reliability of the method is demonstrated in the case of bulk MgO for the Born effective charges, and the high- and low-frequency dielectric constants. We evaluate the static dielectric constant by performing a damped molecular dynamics in an electric field and avoiding the calculation of the dynamical matrix. Application of this method to vitreous silica shows good agreement with experiment and illustrates its potential for systems of large size.

  3. Color molecular dynamics for dense matter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Maruyama, Toshiki; Hatsuda, Tetsuo

    2000-01-01

    We propose a microscopic approach for quark many-body system based on molecular dynamics. Using color confinement and one-gluon exchange potentials together with meson exchange potentials between quarks, we construct nucleons and nuclear/quark matter. Dynamical transition between confinement and deconfinement phases are studied at high baryon density with this molecular dynamics simulation. (author)

  4. Lattice dynamics and molecular dynamics simulation of complex materials

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chaplot, S.L.

    1997-01-01

    In this article we briefly review the lattice dynamics and molecular dynamics simulation techniques, as used for complex ionic and molecular solids, and demonstrate a number of applications through examples of our work. These computational studies, along with experiments, have provided microscopic insight into the structure and dynamics, phase transitions and thermodynamical properties of a variety of materials including fullerene, high temperature superconducting oxides and geological minerals as a function of pressure and temperature. The computational techniques also allow the study of the structures and dynamics associated with disorder, defects, surfaces, interfaces etc. (author)

  5. Molecular dynamics for irradiation driven chemistry

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sushko, Gennady B.; Solov'yov, Ilia A.; Solov'yov, Andrey V.

    2016-01-01

    A new molecular dynamics (MD) approach for computer simulations of irradiation driven chemical transformations of complex molecular systems is suggested. The approach is based on the fact that irradiation induced quantum transformations can often be treated as random, fast and local processes...... that describe the classical MD of complex molecular systems under irradiation. The proposed irradiation driven molecular dynamics (IDMD) methodology is designed for the molecular level description of the irradiation driven chemistry. The IDMD approach is implemented into the MBN Explorer software package...... involving small molecules or molecular fragments. We advocate that the quantum transformations, such as molecular bond breaks, creation and annihilation of dangling bonds, electronic charge redistributions, changes in molecular topologies, etc., could be incorporated locally into the molecular force fields...

  6. A Force Balanced Fragmentation Method for ab Initio Molecular Dynamic Simulation of Protein

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mingyuan Xu

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available A force balanced generalized molecular fractionation with conjugate caps (FB-GMFCC method is proposed for ab initio molecular dynamic simulation of proteins. In this approach, the energy of the protein is computed by a linear combination of the QM energies of individual residues and molecular fragments that account for the two-body interaction of hydrogen bond between backbone peptides. The atomic forces on the caped H atoms were corrected to conserve the total force of the protein. Using this approach, ab initio molecular dynamic simulation of an Ace-(ALA9-NME linear peptide showed the conservation of the total energy of the system throughout the simulation. Further a more robust 110 ps ab initio molecular dynamic simulation was performed for a protein with 56 residues and 862 atoms in explicit water. Compared with the classical force field, the ab initio molecular dynamic simulations gave better description of the geometry of peptide bonds. Although further development is still needed, the current approach is highly efficient, trivially parallel, and can be applied to ab initio molecular dynamic simulation study of large proteins.

  7. Substructured multibody molecular dynamics.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Grest, Gary Stephen; Stevens, Mark Jackson; Plimpton, Steven James; Woolf, Thomas B. (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD); Lehoucq, Richard B.; Crozier, Paul Stewart; Ismail, Ahmed E.; Mukherjee, Rudranarayan M. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY); Draganescu, Andrei I.

    2006-11-01

    We have enhanced our parallel molecular dynamics (MD) simulation software LAMMPS (Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator, lammps.sandia.gov) to include many new features for accelerated simulation including articulated rigid body dynamics via coupling to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute code POEMS (Parallelizable Open-source Efficient Multibody Software). We use new features of the LAMMPS software package to investigate rhodopsin photoisomerization, and water model surface tension and capillary waves at the vapor-liquid interface. Finally, we motivate the recipes of MD for practitioners and researchers in numerical analysis and computational mechanics.

  8. Petascale molecular dynamics simulation using the fast multipole method on K computer

    KAUST Repository

    Ohno, Yousuke; Yokota, Rio; Koyama, Hiroshi; Morimoto, Gentaro; Hasegawa, Aki; Masumoto, Gen; Okimoto, Noriaki; Hirano, Yoshinori; Ibeid, Huda; Narumi, Tetsu; Taiji, Makoto

    2014-01-01

    In this paper, we report all-atom simulations of molecular crowding - a result from the full node simulation on the "K computer", which is a 10-PFLOPS supercomputer in Japan. The capability of this machine enables us to perform simulation of crowded cellular environments, which are more realistic compared to conventional MD simulations where proteins are simulated in isolation. Living cells are "crowded" because macromolecules comprise ∼30% of their molecular weight. Recently, the effects of crowded cellular environments on protein stability have been revealed through in-cell NMR spectroscopy. To measure the performance of the "K computer", we performed all-atom classical molecular dynamics simulations of two systems: target proteins in a solvent, and target proteins in an environment of molecular crowders that mimic the conditions of a living cell. Using the full system, we achieved 4.4 PFLOPS during a 520 million-atom simulation with cutoff of 28 Å. Furthermore, we discuss the performance and scaling of fast multipole methods for molecular dynamics simulations on the "K computer", as well as comparisons with Ewald summation methods. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Petascale molecular dynamics simulation using the fast multipole method on K computer

    KAUST Repository

    Ohno, Yousuke

    2014-10-01

    In this paper, we report all-atom simulations of molecular crowding - a result from the full node simulation on the "K computer", which is a 10-PFLOPS supercomputer in Japan. The capability of this machine enables us to perform simulation of crowded cellular environments, which are more realistic compared to conventional MD simulations where proteins are simulated in isolation. Living cells are "crowded" because macromolecules comprise ∼30% of their molecular weight. Recently, the effects of crowded cellular environments on protein stability have been revealed through in-cell NMR spectroscopy. To measure the performance of the "K computer", we performed all-atom classical molecular dynamics simulations of two systems: target proteins in a solvent, and target proteins in an environment of molecular crowders that mimic the conditions of a living cell. Using the full system, we achieved 4.4 PFLOPS during a 520 million-atom simulation with cutoff of 28 Å. Furthermore, we discuss the performance and scaling of fast multipole methods for molecular dynamics simulations on the "K computer", as well as comparisons with Ewald summation methods. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  10. An Evaluation of Explicit Receptor Flexibility in Molecular Docking Using Molecular Dynamics and Torsion Angle Molecular Dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Armen, Roger S; Chen, Jianhan; Brooks, Charles L

    2009-10-13

    Incorporating receptor flexibility into molecular docking should improve results for flexible proteins. However, the incorporation of explicit all-atom flexibility with molecular dynamics for the entire protein chain may also introduce significant error and "noise" that could decrease docking accuracy and deteriorate the ability of a scoring function to rank native-like poses. We address this apparent paradox by comparing the success of several flexible receptor models in cross-docking and multiple receptor ensemble docking for p38α mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase. Explicit all-atom receptor flexibility has been incorporated into a CHARMM-based molecular docking method (CDOCKER) using both molecular dynamics (MD) and torsion angle molecular dynamics (TAMD) for the refinement of predicted protein-ligand binding geometries. These flexible receptor models have been evaluated, and the accuracy and efficiency of TAMD sampling is directly compared to MD sampling. Several flexible receptor models are compared, encompassing flexible side chains, flexible loops, multiple flexible backbone segments, and treatment of the entire chain as flexible. We find that although including side chain and some backbone flexibility is required for improved docking accuracy as expected, docking accuracy also diminishes as additional and unnecessary receptor flexibility is included into the conformational search space. Ensemble docking results demonstrate that including protein flexibility leads to to improved agreement with binding data for 227 active compounds. This comparison also demonstrates that a flexible receptor model enriches high affinity compound identification without significantly increasing the number of false positives from low affinity compounds.

  11. Classical molecular dynamics simulations of fusion and fragmentation in fullerene-fullerene collisions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Verkhovtsev, A.; Korol, A.V.; Solovyov, A.V.

    2017-01-01

    We present the results of classical molecular dynamics simulations of collision-induced fusion and fragmentation of C 60 fullerenes, performed by means of the MBN Explorer software package. The simulations provide information on structural differences of the fused compound depending on kinematics of the collision process. The analysis of fragmentation dynamics at different initial conditions shows that the size distributions of produced molecular fragments are peaked for dimers, which is in agreement with a well-established mechanism of C 60 fragmentation via preferential C 2 emission. Atomic trajectories of the colliding particles are analyzed and different fragmentation patterns are observed and discussed. On the basis of the performed simulations, characteristic time of C 2 emission is estimated as a function of collision energy. The results are compared with experimental time-of-flight distributions of molecular fragments and with earlier theoretical studies. Considering the widely explored case study of C 60 -C 60 collisions, we demonstrate broad capabilities of the MBN Explorer software, which can be utilized for studying collisions of a broad variety of nano-scale and bio-molecular systems by means of classical molecular dynamics. (authors)

  12. Approximation of quantum observables by molecular dynamics simulations

    KAUST Repository

    Sandberg, Mattias

    2016-01-01

    In this talk I will discuss how to estimate the uncertainty in molecular dynamics simulations. Molecular dynamics is a computational method to study molecular systems in materials science, chemistry, and molecular biology. The wide popularity of molecular dynamics simulations relies on the fact that in many cases it agrees very well with experiments. If we however want the simulation to predict something that has no comparing experiment, we need a mathematical estimate of the accuracy of the computation. In the case of molecular systems with few particles, such studies are made by directly solving the Schrodinger equation. In this talk I will discuss theoretical results on the accuracy between quantum mechanics and molecular dynamics, to be used for systems that are too large to be handled computationally by the Schrodinger equation.

  13. Approximation of quantum observables by molecular dynamics simulations

    KAUST Repository

    Sandberg, Mattias

    2016-01-06

    In this talk I will discuss how to estimate the uncertainty in molecular dynamics simulations. Molecular dynamics is a computational method to study molecular systems in materials science, chemistry, and molecular biology. The wide popularity of molecular dynamics simulations relies on the fact that in many cases it agrees very well with experiments. If we however want the simulation to predict something that has no comparing experiment, we need a mathematical estimate of the accuracy of the computation. In the case of molecular systems with few particles, such studies are made by directly solving the Schrodinger equation. In this talk I will discuss theoretical results on the accuracy between quantum mechanics and molecular dynamics, to be used for systems that are too large to be handled computationally by the Schrodinger equation.

  14. Nonequilibrium and generalized-ensemble molecular dynamics simulations for amyloid fibril

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Okumura, Hisashi [Research Center for Computational Science, Institute for Molecular Science, Okazaki, Aichi 444-8585 (Japan); Department of Structural Molecular Science, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Okazaki, Aichi 444-8585 (Japan)

    2015-12-31

    Amyloids are insoluble and misfolded fibrous protein aggregates and associated with more than 20 serious human diseases. We perform all-atom molecular dynamics simulations of amyloid fibril assembly and disassembly.

  15. Molecular dynamic analysis of the structure of dendrimers

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Canetta, E.; Maino, G. E-mail: maino@bologna.enea.it

    2004-01-01

    We present main results of molecular dynamics simulations that we have carried out in order to investigate structural properties of polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers. Obtained data confirm the PAMAM dendrimer structure proposed by experiments, performed by means of X-ray scattering (SAXS) and quasi-elastic light scattering (QELS) techniques.

  16. Molecular dynamic analysis of the structure of dendrimers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Canetta, E.; Maino, G.

    2004-01-01

    We present main results of molecular dynamics simulations that we have carried out in order to investigate structural properties of polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers. Obtained data confirm the PAMAM dendrimer structure proposed by experiments, performed by means of X-ray scattering (SAXS) and quasi-elastic light scattering (QELS) techniques

  17. Polymer friction Molecular Dynamics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sivebæk, Ion Marius; Samoilov, Vladimir N.; Persson, Bo N. J.

    We present molecular dynamics friction calculations for confined hydrocarbon solids with molecular lengths from 20 to 1400 carbon atoms. Two cases are considered: a) polymer sliding against a hard substrate, and b) polymer sliding on polymer. In the first setup the shear stresses are relatively...... independent of molecular length. For polymer sliding on polymer the friction is significantly larger, and dependent on the molecular chain length. In both cases, the shear stresses are proportional to the squeezing pressure and finite at zero load, indicating an adhesional contribution to the friction force....

  18. Orbital free molecular dynamics; Approche sans orbitale des plasmas denses

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lambert, F

    2007-08-15

    The microscopic properties of hot and dense plasmas stay a field essentially studied thanks to classical theories like the One Component Plasma, models which rely on free parameters, particularly ionization. In order to investigate these systems, we have used, in this PhD work, a semi-classical model, without free parameters, that is based on coupling consistently classical molecular dynamics for the nuclei and orbital free density functional theory for the electrons. The electronic fluid is represented by a free energy entirely determined by the local density. This approximation was validated by a comparison with an ab initio technique, quantum molecular dynamics. This one is identical to the previous except for the description of the free energy that depends on a quantum-independent-particle model. Orbital free molecular dynamics was then used to compute equation of state of boron and iron plasmas in the hot and dense regime. Furthermore, comparisons with classical theories were performed on structural and dynamical properties. Finally, equation of state and transport coefficients mixing laws were studied by direct simulation of a plasma composed of deuterium and copper. (author)

  19. Next generation extended Lagrangian first principles molecular dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Niklasson, Anders M N

    2017-08-07

    Extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics [A. M. N. Niklasson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 123004 (2008)] is formulated for general Hohenberg-Kohn density-functional theory and compared with the extended Lagrangian framework of first principles molecular dynamics by Car and Parrinello [Phys. Rev. Lett. 55, 2471 (1985)]. It is shown how extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics overcomes several shortcomings of regular, direct Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics, while improving or maintaining important features of Car-Parrinello simulations. The accuracy of the electronic degrees of freedom in extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics, with respect to the exact Born-Oppenheimer solution, is of second-order in the size of the integration time step and of fourth order in the potential energy surface. Improved stability over recent formulations of extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics is achieved by generalizing the theory to finite temperature ensembles, using fractional occupation numbers in the calculation of the inner-product kernel of the extended harmonic oscillator that appears as a preconditioner in the electronic equations of motion. Material systems that normally exhibit slow self-consistent field convergence can be simulated using integration time steps of the same order as in direct Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics, but without the requirement of an iterative, non-linear electronic ground-state optimization prior to the force evaluations and without a systematic drift in the total energy. In combination with proposed low-rank and on the fly updates of the kernel, this formulation provides an efficient and general framework for quantum-based Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations.

  20. Analysis of Time Reversible Born-Oppenheimer Molecular Dynamics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lin Lin

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available We analyze the time reversible Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics (TRBOMD scheme, which preserves the time reversibility of the Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics even with non-convergent self-consistent field iteration. In the linear response regime, we derive the stability condition, as well as the accuracy of TRBOMD for computing physical properties, such as the phonon frequency obtained from the molecular dynamics simulation. We connect and compare TRBOMD with Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics in terms of accuracy and stability. We further discuss the accuracy of TRBOMD beyond the linear response regime for non-equilibrium dynamics of nuclei. Our results are demonstrated through numerical experiments using a simplified one-dimensional model for Kohn-Sham density functional theory.

  1. Modification of -Adenosyl--Homocysteine as Inhibitor of Nonstructural Protein 5 Methyltransferase Dengue Virus Through Molecular Docking and Molecular Dynamics Simulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Usman Sumo Friend Tambunan

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Dengue fever is still a major threat worldwide, approximately threatening two-fifths of the world’s population in tropical and subtropical countries. Nonstructural protein 5 (NS5 methyltransferase enzyme plays a vital role in the process of messenger RNA capping of dengue by transferring methyl groups from S -adenosyl- l -methionine to N7 atom of the guanine bases of RNA and the RNA ribose group of 2′OH, resulting in S -adenosyl- l -homocysteine (SAH. The modification of SAH compound was screened using molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation, along with computational ADME-Tox (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity test. The 2 simulations were performed using Molecular Operating Environment (MOE 2008.10 software, whereas the ADME-Tox test was performed using various software. The modification of SAH compound was done using several functional groups that possess different polarities and properties, resulting in 3460 ligands to be docked. After conducting docking simulation, we earned 3 best ligands (SAH-M331, SAH-M2696, and SAH-M1356 based on ΔG binding and molecular interactions, which show better results than the standard ligands. Moreover, the results of molecular dynamics simulation show that the best ligands are still able to maintain the active site residue interaction with the binding site until the end of the simulation. After a series of molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation were performed, we concluded that SAH-M1356 ligand is the most potential SAH-based compound to inhibit NS5 methyltransferase enzyme for treating dengue fever.

  2. A Molecular Dynamics Study of Lunasin | Singh | South African ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    A Molecular Dynamics Study of Lunasin. ... profile of lunasin,using classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations at the time scale of 300 ns. ... Keywords: Lunasin, molecular dynamics, amber, CLASICO, α-helix, β-turn, PTRAJ, RGD, RMSD ...

  3. Molecular dynamics coupled with a virtual system for effective conformational sampling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hayami, Tomonori; Kasahara, Kota; Nakamura, Haruki; Higo, Junichi

    2018-07-15

    An enhanced conformational sampling method is proposed: virtual-system coupled canonical molecular dynamics (VcMD). Although VcMD enhances sampling along a reaction coordinate, this method is free from estimation of a canonical distribution function along the reaction coordinate. This method introduces a virtual system that does not necessarily obey a physical law. To enhance sampling the virtual system couples with a molecular system to be studied. Resultant snapshots produce a canonical ensemble. This method was applied to a system consisting of two short peptides in an explicit solvent. Conventional molecular dynamics simulation, which is ten times longer than VcMD, was performed along with adaptive umbrella sampling. Free-energy landscapes computed from the three simulations mutually converged well. The VcMD provided quicker association/dissociation motions of peptides than the conventional molecular dynamics did. The VcMD method is applicable to various complicated systems because of its methodological simplicity. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  4. A new shared-memory programming paradigm for molecular dynamics simulations on the Intel Paragon

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    D'Azevedo, E.F.; Romine, C.H.

    1994-12-01

    This report describes the use of shared memory emulation with DOLIB (Distributed Object Library) to simplify parallel programming on the Intel Paragon. A molecular dynamics application is used as an example to illustrate the use of the DOLIB shared memory library. SOTON-PAR, a parallel molecular dynamics code with explicit message-passing using a Lennard-Jones 6-12 potential, is rewritten using DOLIB primitives. The resulting code has no explicit message primitives and resembles a serial code. The new code can perform dynamic load balancing and achieves better performance than the original parallel code with explicit message-passing

  5. Experimental and molecular dynamics study on the inhibition performance of some nitrogen containing compounds for iron corrosion

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Khaled, K.F.

    2010-01-01

    A molecular dynamics study for the adsorption of three benzimidazole derivatives and their inhibition characteristics was studied using chemical (weight loss) and electrochemical measurements (potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, EIS). Electrochemical measurements results revealed that the inhibition efficiencies increased with the concentration of inhibitors. Results obtained from weight loss, dc polarization and ac impedance measurements are in reasonably good agreement and show increased inhibitor efficiency with increasing inhibitor concentration. The molecular dynamics calculations showed that the higher the binding energy between the inhibitor and metal surface, the higher the inhibition efficiency. Also, the higher the adsorption energy, the higher the inhibition efficiency. The molecular dynamics study revealed that the benzimidazole ring as well as the side chain are the active sites in these inhibitors and they can absorb on Fe surface by donating electrons to Fe d-orbital.

  6. Huge-scale molecular dynamics simulation of multibubble nuclei

    KAUST Repository

    Watanabe, Hiroshi

    2013-12-01

    We have developed molecular dynamics codes for a short-range interaction potential that adopt both the flat-MPI and MPI/OpenMP hybrid parallelizations on the basis of a full domain decomposition strategy. Benchmark simulations involving up to 38.4 billion Lennard-Jones particles were performed on Fujitsu PRIMEHPC FX10, consisting of 4800 SPARC64 IXfx 1.848 GHz processors, at the Information Technology Center of the University of Tokyo, and a performance of 193 teraflops was achieved, which corresponds to a 17.0% execution efficiency. Cavitation processes were also simulated on PRIMEHPC FX10 and SGI Altix ICE 8400EX at the Institute of Solid State Physics of the University of Tokyo, which involved 1.45 billion and 22.9 million particles, respectively. Ostwald-like ripening was observed after the multibubble nuclei. Our results demonstrate that direct simulations of multiscale phenomena involving phase transitions from the atomic scale are possible and that the molecular dynamics method is a promising method that can be applied to petascale computers. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  7. Towards the molecular bases of polymerase dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chela Flores, J.

    1991-03-01

    One aspect of the strong relationship that is known to exist between the processes of DNA replication and transcription is manifest in the coupling of the rates of movement of the replication fork (r f ) and RNA polymerase (r t ). We address two issues concerning the largely unexplored area of polymerase dynamics: (i) The validity of an approximate kinematic formula linking r f and r t suggested by experiments in which transcription is initiated in some prokaryotes with the antibiotic streptolydigin, and (ii) What are the molecular bases of the kinematic formula? An analysis of the available data suggests possible molecular bases for polymerase dynamics. In particular, we are led to a hypothesis: In active chromatin r t may depend on the length (λ t ) of the transcript of the primary messenger RNA (pre-mRNA). This new effect is subject to experimental verification. We discuss possible experiments that may be performed in order to test this prediction. (author). Refs, 6 tabs

  8. Equation of state of dense plasmas: Orbital-free molecular dynamics as the limit of quantum molecular dynamics for high-Z elements

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Danel, J.-F.; Blottiau, P.; Kazandjian, L.; Piron, R.; Torrent, M. [CEA, DAM, DIF, 91297 Arpajon (France)

    2014-10-15

    The applicability of quantum molecular dynamics to the calculation of the equation of state of a dense plasma is limited at high temperature by computational cost. Orbital-free molecular dynamics, based on a semiclassical approximation and possibly on a gradient correction, is a simulation method available at high temperature. For a high-Z element such as lutetium, we examine how orbital-free molecular dynamics applied to the equation of state of a dense plasma can be regarded as the limit of quantum molecular dynamics at high temperature. For the normal mass density and twice the normal mass density, we show that the pressures calculated with the quantum approach converge monotonically towards those calculated with the orbital-free approach; we observe a faster convergence when the orbital-free approach includes the gradient correction. We propose a method to obtain an equation of state reproducing quantum molecular dynamics results up to high temperatures where this approach cannot be directly implemented. With the results already obtained for low-Z plasmas, the present study opens the way for reproducing the quantum molecular dynamics pressure for all elements up to high temperatures.

  9. Next Generation Extended Lagrangian Quantum-based Molecular Dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Negre, Christian

    2017-06-01

    A new framework for extended Lagrangian first-principles molecular dynamics simulations is presented, which overcomes shortcomings of regular, direct Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics, while maintaining important advantages of the unified extended Lagrangian formulation of density functional theory pioneered by Car and Parrinello three decades ago. The new framework allows, for the first time, energy conserving, linear-scaling Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations, which is necessary to study larger and more realistic systems over longer simulation times than previously possible. Expensive, self-consinstent-field optimizations are avoided and normal integration time steps of regular, direct Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics can be used. Linear scaling electronic structure theory is presented using a graph-based approach that is ideal for parallel calculations on hybrid computer platforms. For the first time, quantum based Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulation is becoming a practically feasible approach in simulations of +100,000 atoms-representing a competitive alternative to classical polarizable force field methods. In collaboration with: Anders Niklasson, Los Alamos National Laboratory.

  10. Molecular Dynamics Simulations of a Linear Nanomotor Driven by Thermophoretic Forces

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zambrano, Harvey A; Walther, Jens Honore; Jaffe, Richard L.

    Molecular Dynamics of a Linear Nanomotor Driven by Thermophoresis Harvey A. Zambrano1, Jens H. Walther1,2 and Richard L. Jaffe3 1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Fluid Mechanics, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark; 2Computational Science and Engineering Laboratory, ETH...... future molecular machines a complete understanding of the friction forces involved on the transport process at the molecular level have to be addressed.18 In this work we perform Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations using the MD package FASTTUBE19 to study a molecular linear motor consisting of coaxial...... the valence forces within the CNT using Morse, harmonic angle and torsion potentials.19We include a nonbonded carbon-carbon Lennard-Jones potential to describe the vdW interaction between the carbon atoms within the double wall portion of the system. We equilibrate the system at 300K for 0.1 ns, by coupling...

  11. Molecular simulations of hydrocarbon lubricants: Impact of molecular architecture on performance properties

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kioupis, Loukas I.

    2000-07-01

    With the increased power of modern computers, molecular modeling has been used widely and proven to be a valuable tool for elucidating the physical processes important in many industrial and engineering problems. Of particular interest to us is the rheology and physical chemistry of complex fluids, such as hydrocarbon lubricants and polymers. The goal is to provide qualitative and quantitative molecular-level explanations for the behavior of such fluids, and provide guidance in the development of new improved materials. For example, during the production of poly-α-olefin (PAO) synthetic lubricants, the number of the isomer skeletal structures that can be obtained is staggering. Which of the countless PAO isomers produce a lubricant with superior performance properties? How does it behave under different operational conditions of temperature, pressure, and shear rate? A fundamental understanding of the effect that molecular structure has on the oil's rheological and lubricant performance is first needed, in order to answer these questions. To serve this purpose, we have developed efficient molecular dynamics (MD) simulation programs, which utilize multiple time step algorithms and parallel computational techniques. This enables us to conduct simulations of typical PAO isomers and compute the viscosity, as well as several other dynamic and static properties, as a function of temperature, pressure, and shear rate. The key molecular mechanisms that determine important macroscopic properties, such as viscosity index, viscosity-pressure coefficient, traction coefficient, and shear thinning behavior are discussed. Based on this analysis, lubricant and traction fluid structures that have a high likelihood of having desirable properties are proposed. In addition, studies on simple alkane mixtures are presented, in an attempt to understand the more complex polydisperse lubricant fluids, their blends, and their interaction with additives.

  12. Thermally driven molecular linear motors - A molecular dynamics study

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zambrano, Harvey A; Walther, Jens Honore; Jaffe, Richard Lawrence

    2009-01-01

    We conduct molecular dynamics simulations of a molecular linear motor consisting of coaxial carbon nanotubes with a long outer carbon nanotube confining and guiding the motion of an inner short, capsule-like nanotube. The simulations indicate that the motion of the capsule can be controlled by th...

  13. Introduction to Molecular Dynamics and Accelerated Molecular Dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Perez, Danny

    2012-01-01

    We first introduce classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We discuss their main constituents - the interatomic potentials, the boundary conditions, and the integrators - and the discuss the various ensembles that can be sampled. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of MD, specifically in terms of time and length-scales. We then move on to discuss accelerated MD (AMD) methods, techniques that were designed to circumvent the timescale limitations of MD for rare event systems. The different methods are introduced and examples of use given.

  14. Molecular dynamics study of prolyl oligopeptidase with inhibitor in binding cavity

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kaszuba, K.; Róg, T.; St-Pierre, J.-F.; Männistö, P.T.; Karttunen, M.E.J.; Bunker, A.

    2009-01-01

    We used the crystal structure of prolyl oligopeptidase (POP) with bound Z-pro-prolinal (ZPP) inhibitor (Protein Data Bank (PDB) structure 1QFS) to perform an intensive molecular dynamics study of the POP-ZPP complex. We performed 100 ns of simulation with the hemiacetal bond, through which the ZPP

  15. Modification of S-Adenosyl-l-Homocysteine as Inhibitor of Nonstructural Protein 5 Methyltransferase Dengue Virus Through Molecular Docking and Molecular Dynamics Simulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tambunan, Usman Sumo Friend; Nasution, Mochammad Arfin Fardiansyah; Azhima, Fauziah; Parikesit, Arli Aditya; Toepak, Erwin Prasetya; Idrus, Syarifuddin; Kerami, Djati

    2017-01-01

    Dengue fever is still a major threat worldwide, approximately threatening two-fifths of the world's population in tropical and subtropical countries. Nonstructural protein 5 (NS5) methyltransferase enzyme plays a vital role in the process of messenger RNA capping of dengue by transferring methyl groups from S -adenosyl-l-methionine to N7 atom of the guanine bases of RNA and the RNA ribose group of 2'OH, resulting in S -adenosyl-l-homocysteine (SAH). The modification of SAH compound was screened using molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation, along with computational ADME-Tox (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity) test. The 2 simulations were performed using Molecular Operating Environment (MOE) 2008.10 software, whereas the ADME-Tox test was performed using various software. The modification of SAH compound was done using several functional groups that possess different polarities and properties, resulting in 3460 ligands to be docked. After conducting docking simulation, we earned 3 best ligands (SAH-M331, SAH-M2696, and SAH-M1356) based on ΔG binding and molecular interactions, which show better results than the standard ligands. Moreover, the results of molecular dynamics simulation show that the best ligands are still able to maintain the active site residue interaction with the binding site until the end of the simulation. After a series of molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation were performed, we concluded that SAH-M1356 ligand is the most potential SAH-based compound to inhibit NS5 methyltransferase enzyme for treating dengue fever.

  16. Current-driven dynamics in molecular-scale devices

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Seideman, Tamar

    2003-01-01

    We review recent theoretical work on current-triggered processes in molecular-scale devices - a field at the interface between solid state physics and chemical dynamics with potential applications in diverse areas, including artificial molecular machines, unimolecular transport, surface nanochemistry and nanolithography. The qualitative physics underlying current-triggered dynamics is first discussed and placed in context with several well-studied phenomena with which it shares aspects. A theory for modelling these dynamics is next formulated within a time-dependent scattering approach. Our end result provides useful insight into the system properties that determine the reaction outcome as well as a computationally convenient framework for numerical realization. The theory is applied to study single-molecule surface reactions induced by a scanning tunnelling microscope and current-triggered dynamics in single-molecule transistors. We close with a discussion of several potential applications of current-induced dynamics in molecular devices and several opportunities for future research. (topical review)

  17. Large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of self-assembling systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klein, Michael L; Shinoda, Wataru

    2008-08-08

    Relentless increases in the size and performance of multiprocessor computers, coupled with new algorithms and methods, have led to novel applications of simulations across chemistry. This Perspective focuses on the use of classical molecular dynamics and so-called coarse-grain models to explore phenomena involving self-assembly in complex fluids and biological systems.

  18. Molecular dynamics studies of actinide nitrides

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kurosaki, Ken; Uno, Masayoshi; Yamanaka, Shinsuke; Minato, Kazuo

    2004-01-01

    The molecular dynamics (MD) calculation was performed for actinide nitrides (UN, NpN, and PuN) in the temperature range from 300 to 2800 K to evaluate the physical properties viz., the lattice parameter, thermal expansion coefficient, compressibility, and heat capacity. The Morse-type potential function added to the Busing-Ida type potential was employed for the ionic interactions. The interatomic potential parameters were determined by fitting to the experimental data of the lattice parameter. The usefulness and applicability of the MD method to evaluate the physical properties of actinide nitrides were studied. (author)

  19. Molecular dynamics of surfactant protein C

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ramírez, Eunice; Santana, Alberto; Cruz, Anthony

    2006-01-01

    Surfactant protein C (SP-C) is a membrane-associated protein essential for normal respiration. It has been found that the alpha-helix form of SP-C can undergo, under certain conditions, a transformation from an alpha-helix to a beta-strand conformation that closely resembles amyloid fibrils, which...... are possible contributors to the pathogenesis of pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. Molecular dynamics simulations using the NAMD2 package were performed for systems containing from one to seven SP-C molecules to study their behavior in water. The results of our simulations show that unfolding of the protein...

  20. Molecular Dynamics Studies of Nanofluidic Devices

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zambrano Rodriguez, Harvey Alexander

    of such devices. Computational nanofluidics complements experimental studies by providing detailed spatial and temporal information of the nanosystem. In this thesis, we conduct molecular dynamics simulations to study basic nanoscale devices. We focus our studies on the understanding of transport mechanism...... to drive fluids and solids at the nanoscale. Specifically, we present the results of three different research projects. Throughout the first part of this thesis, we include a comprenhensive introduction to computational nanofluidics and to molecular simulations, and describe the molecular dynamics...... in opposite direction to the imposed thermal gradient also we measure higher velocities as higher thermal gradients are imposed. Secondly, we present an atomistic analysis of a molecular linear motor fabricated of coaxial carbon nanotubes and powered by thermal gradients. The MD simulation results indicate...

  1. Structure and Interface Properties of Nanophase Ceramics: Multimillion Particle Molecular-Dynamics Simulations on Parallel Computer

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Kalia, Rajiv

    1997-01-01

    Large-scale molecular-dynamics (MD) simulations were performed to investigate: (1) sintering process, structural correlations, and mechanical behavior including dynamic fracture in microporous and nanophase Si3N4...

  2. Step by step parallel programming method for molecular dynamics code

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Orii, Shigeo; Ohta, Toshio

    1996-07-01

    Parallel programming for a numerical simulation program of molecular dynamics is carried out with a step-by-step programming technique using the two phase method. As a result, within the range of a certain computing parameters, it is found to obtain parallel performance by using the level of parallel programming which decomposes the calculation according to indices of do-loops into each processor on the vector parallel computer VPP500 and the scalar parallel computer Paragon. It is also found that VPP500 shows parallel performance in wider range computing parameters. The reason is that the time cost of the program parts, which can not be reduced by the do-loop level of the parallel programming, can be reduced to the negligible level by the vectorization. After that, the time consuming parts of the program are concentrated on less parts that can be accelerated by the do-loop level of the parallel programming. This report shows the step-by-step parallel programming method and the parallel performance of the molecular dynamics code on VPP500 and Paragon. (author)

  3. Theoretical Concepts in Molecular Photodissociation Dynamics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Henriksen, Niels Engholm

    1995-01-01

    This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Quantum Dynamics of Molecular Photofragmentation The Total Reaction Probability Final Product Distributions Time-Independent Approach, Stationary Scattering States Gaussian Wave Packet Dynamics Wigner Phase Space Representation The Diatomic...

  4. Molecular dynamics simulations of single siloxane dendrimers: Molecular structure and intramolecular mobility of terminal groups

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kurbatov, A. O.; Balabaev, N. K.; Mazo, M. A.; Kramarenko, E. Yu.

    2018-01-01

    Molecular dynamics simulations of two types of isolated siloxane dendrimers of various generations (from the 2nd to the 8th) have been performed for temperatures ranging from 150 K to 600 K. The first type of dendrimer molecules has short spacers consisting of a single oxygen atom. In the dendrimers of the second type, spacers are longer and comprised of two oxygen atoms separated by a single silicon atom. A comparative analysis of molecular macroscopic parameters such as the gyration radius and the shape factor as well as atom distributions within dendrimer interior has been performed for varying generation number, temperature, and spacer length. It has been found that the short-spacer dendrimers of the 7th and 8th generations have a stressed central part with elongated bonds and deformed valence angles. Investigation of the time evolution of radial displacements of the terminal Si atoms has shown that a fraction of the Si groups have a reduced mobility. Therefore, rather long time trajectories (of the order of tens of nanoseconds) are required to study dendrimer intramolecular dynamics.

  5. First principles molecular dynamics without self-consistent field optimization

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Souvatzis, Petros; Niklasson, Anders M. N.

    2014-01-01

    We present a first principles molecular dynamics approach that is based on time-reversible extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics [A. M. N. Niklasson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 123004 (2008)] in the limit of vanishing self-consistent field optimization. The optimization-free dynamics keeps the computational cost to a minimum and typically provides molecular trajectories that closely follow the exact Born-Oppenheimer potential energy surface. Only one single diagonalization and Hamiltonian (or Fockian) construction are required in each integration time step. The proposed dynamics is derived for a general free-energy potential surface valid at finite electronic temperatures within hybrid density functional theory. Even in the event of irregular functional behavior that may cause a dynamical instability, the optimization-free limit represents a natural starting guess for force calculations that may require a more elaborate iterative electronic ground state optimization. Our optimization-free dynamics thus represents a flexible theoretical framework for a broad and general class of ab initio molecular dynamics simulations

  6. Molecular dynamics simulations of bio-nano systems with MBN Explorer

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Yakubovich, Alexander V.; Solov'yov, Ilia; Solov'yov, Andrey V.

    2013-01-01

    We present results of molecular dynamics simulations performed using a multi-purpose computer code MBN Explorer. In particular we consider the process of laser induced acoustic desorption of lysine amino acids from the surface of a nickel foil. We analyze the rate of lysine desorption from...

  7. Molecular dynamics and diffusion a compilation

    CERN Document Server

    Fisher, David

    2013-01-01

    The molecular dynamics technique was developed in the 1960s as the outgrowth of attempts to model complicated systems by using either a) direct physical simulation or (following the great success of Monte Carlo methods) by b) using computer techniques. Computer simulation soon won out over clumsy physical simulation, and the ever-increasing speed and sophistication of computers has naturally made molecular dynamics simulation into a more and more successful technique. One of its most popular applications is the study of diffusion, and some experts now even claim that molecular dynamics simulation is, in the case of situations involving well-characterised elements and structures, more accurate than experimental measurement. The present double volume includes a compilation (over 600 items) of predicted solid-state diffusion data, for all of the major materials groups, dating back nearly four decades. The double volume also includes some original papers: "Determination of the Activation Energy for Formation and ...

  8. Extended Lagrangian Excited State Molecular Dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bjorgaard, J A; Sheppard, D; Tretiak, S; Niklasson, A M N

    2018-02-13

    An extended Lagrangian framework for excited state molecular dynamics (XL-ESMD) using time-dependent self-consistent field theory is proposed. The formulation is a generalization of the extended Lagrangian formulations for ground state Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics [Phys. Rev. Lett. 2008 100, 123004]. The theory is implemented, demonstrated, and evaluated using a time-dependent semiempirical model, though it should be generally applicable to ab initio theory. The simulations show enhanced energy stability and a significantly reduced computational cost associated with the iterative solutions of both the ground state and the electronically excited states. Relaxed convergence criteria can therefore be used both for the self-consistent ground state optimization and for the iterative subspace diagonalization of the random phase approximation matrix used to calculate the excited state transitions. The XL-ESMD approach is expected to enable numerically efficient excited state molecular dynamics for such methods as time-dependent Hartree-Fock (TD-HF), Configuration Interactions Singles (CIS), and time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT).

  9. The design and performance of a velocity map imaging spectrometer for the study of molecular photoionisation dynamics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Holland, D.M.P., E-mail: david.holland@stfc.ac.uk [Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury, Warrington, Cheshire WA4 4AD (United Kingdom); Shaw, D.A. [Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury, Warrington, Cheshire WA4 4AD (United Kingdom)

    2012-12-10

    Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Velocity map imaging spectrometer optimised for molecular photoionisation dynamics. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Kinetic energy distribution of O{sup +} fragments measured. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Effect of autoionisation on photoelectron vibrational populations studied. -- Abstract: The design, construction and performance of a velocity map imaging spectrometer for the study of molecular photoionisation dynamics is described. The spectrometer has been optimised for the efficient collection and detection of particles (electrons or positively charged ions) generated through the interaction of gas phase molecules with synchrotron radiation. A double Einzel lens, incorporated into the flight tube, enhances the collection efficiency of energetic particles. Computer modelling has been used to trace the trajectories of charged particles through the spectrometer and to assess the image quality. A time and position sensitive delay-line detector is used to record the images. Results from two experimental studies are presented to illustrate the capabilities of the spectrometer. In the first, the effect of electronic autoionisation on the vibrationally resolved photoelectron branching ratios of the N{sub 2}{sup +} X {sup 2}{Sigma}{sub g}{sup +} state has been investigated in an excitation range where prominent structure due to Rydberg states occurs in the ion yield curve. The results show that autoionisation leads to rotational branch populations that differ from those observed in direct, non-resonant, photoionisation. In the second, the kinetic energy distribution and the angular distribution of O{sup +} fragments formed in the dissociative photoionisation of molecular oxygen have been measured. The timing properties of the detector have allowed O{sup +} fragments to be separated from O{sub 2}{sup +} parent ions using time-of-flight techniques.

  10. Advances in molecular vibrations and collision dynamics molecular clusters

    CERN Document Server

    Bacic, Zatko

    1998-01-01

    This volume focuses on molecular clusters, bound by van der Waals interactions and hydrogen bonds. Twelve chapters review a wide range of recent theoretical and experimental advances in the areas of cluster vibrations, spectroscopy, and reaction dynamics. The authors are leading experts, who have made significant contributions to these topics.The first chapter describes exciting results and new insights in the solvent effects on the short-time photo fragmentation dynamics of small molecules, obtained by combining heteroclusters with femtosecond laser excitation. The second is on theoretical work on effects of single solvent (argon) atom on the photodissociation dynamics of the solute H2O molecule. The next two chapters cover experimental and theoretical aspects of the energetics and vibrations of small clusters. Chapter 5 describes diffusion quantum Monte Carlo calculations and non additive three-body potential terms in molecular clusters. The next six chapters deal with hydrogen-bonded clusters, refle...

  11. Hydrogen Bond Dynamics in Aqueous Solutions: Ab initio Molecular ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Rate equation for the decay of CHB(t) · Definition of Hydrogen Bonds · Results of Molecular Dynamics · Dynamics of anion-water and water-water hydrogen bonds · Structural relaxation of anion-water & water-water H-bonds · Ab initio Molecular Dynamics : · Slide 14 · Dynamics of hydrogen bonds : CPMD results · Slide 16.

  12. High performance computations using dynamical nucleation theory

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Windus, T L; Crosby, L D; Kathmann, S M

    2008-01-01

    Chemists continue to explore the use of very large computations to perform simulations that describe the molecular level physics of critical challenges in science. In this paper, we describe the Dynamical Nucleation Theory Monte Carlo (DNTMC) model - a model for determining molecular scale nucleation rate constants - and its parallel capabilities. The potential for bottlenecks and the challenges to running on future petascale or larger resources are delineated. A 'master-slave' solution is proposed to scale to the petascale and will be developed in the NWChem software. In addition, mathematical and data analysis challenges are described

  13. Non-adiabatic molecular dynamic simulations of opening reaction of molecular junctions

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Zobač, Vladimír; Lewis, J.P.; Jelínek, Pavel

    2016-01-01

    Roč. 27, č. 28 (2016), 1-8, č. článku 285202. ISSN 0957-4484 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA14-02079S Institutional support: RVO:68378271 Keywords : non-adiabatic molecular dynamics * molecular junctions * molecular switches * DFT Subject RIV: BM - Solid Matter Physics ; Magnetism Impact factor: 3.440, year: 2016

  14. Effects of temperature and isotopic substitution on electron attachment dynamics of guanine–cytosine base pair: Ring-polymer and classical molecular dynamics simulations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Minoshima, Yusuke; Seki, Yusuke; Takayanagi, Toshiyuki; Shiga, Motoyuki

    2016-01-01

    Highlights: • Dynamics of excess electron attachment to guanine–cytosine base pair. • Ring-polymer and classical molecular dynamics simulations are performed. • Temperature and isotope substitution effects are investigated. - Abstract: The dynamical process of electron attachment to a guanine–cytosine pair in the normal (h-GC) and deuterated (d-GC) forms has been studied theoretically by semiclassical ring-polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) simulations using the empirical valence bond model. The initially formed dipole-bound anion is converted rapidly to the valence-bound anion within about 0.1 ps in both h-GC and d-GC. However, the subsequent proton transfer in h-GC occurs with a rate five times greater than the deuteron transfer in d-GC. The change of rates with isotopic substitution and temperature variation in the RPMD simulations are quantitatively and qualitatively different from those in the classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, demonstrating the importance of nuclear quantum effects on the dynamics of this system.

  15. Effects of temperature and isotopic substitution on electron attachment dynamics of guanine–cytosine base pair: Ring-polymer and classical molecular dynamics simulations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Minoshima, Yusuke; Seki, Yusuke [Department of Chemistry, Saitama University, 255 Shimo-Okubo, Sakura-ku, Saitama City, Saitama 338-8570 (Japan); Takayanagi, Toshiyuki, E-mail: tako@mail.saitama-u.ac.jp [Department of Chemistry, Saitama University, 255 Shimo-Okubo, Sakura-ku, Saitama City, Saitama 338-8570 (Japan); Shiga, Motoyuki [Center for Computational Science and E-Systems, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, 148-4, Kashiwanoha Campus, 178-4 Wakashiba, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-0871 (Japan)

    2016-06-15

    Highlights: • Dynamics of excess electron attachment to guanine–cytosine base pair. • Ring-polymer and classical molecular dynamics simulations are performed. • Temperature and isotope substitution effects are investigated. - Abstract: The dynamical process of electron attachment to a guanine–cytosine pair in the normal (h-GC) and deuterated (d-GC) forms has been studied theoretically by semiclassical ring-polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) simulations using the empirical valence bond model. The initially formed dipole-bound anion is converted rapidly to the valence-bound anion within about 0.1 ps in both h-GC and d-GC. However, the subsequent proton transfer in h-GC occurs with a rate five times greater than the deuteron transfer in d-GC. The change of rates with isotopic substitution and temperature variation in the RPMD simulations are quantitatively and qualitatively different from those in the classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, demonstrating the importance of nuclear quantum effects on the dynamics of this system.

  16. Visualizing Energy on Target: Molecular Dynamics Simulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-12-01

    ARL-TR-8234 ● DEC 2017 US Army Research Laboratory Visualizing Energy on Target: Molecular Dynamics Simulations by DeCarlos E...return it to the originator. ARL-TR-8234● DEC 2017 US Army Research Laboratory Visualizing Energy on Target: Molecular Dynamics...REPORT TYPE Technical Report 3. DATES COVERED (From - To) 1 October 2015–30 September 2016 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Visualizing Energy on Target

  17. Nonadiabatic electron wavepacket dynamics behind molecular autoionization

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matsuoka, Takahide; Takatsuka, Kazuo

    2018-01-01

    A theoretical method for real-time dynamics of nonadiabatic reorganization of electronic configurations in molecules is developed, with dual aim that the intramolecular electron dynamics can be probed by means of direct and/or indirect photoionizations and that the physical origins behind photoionization signals attained in the time domain can be identified in terms of the language of time-dependent quantum chemistry. In doing so, we first formulate and implement a new computational scheme for nonadiabatic electron dynamics associated with molecular ionization, which well fits in the general theory of nonadiabatic electron dynamics. In this method, the total nonadiabatic electron wavepackets are propagated in time directly with complex natural orbitals without referring to Hartree-Fock molecular orbitals, and the amount of electron flux from a molecular region leading to ionization is evaluated in terms of the relevant complex natural orbitals. In the second half of this paper, we apply the method to electron dynamics in the elementary processes consisting of the Auger decay to demonstrate the methodological significance. An illustrative example is taken from an Auger decay starting from the 2a1 orbital hole-state of H2O+. The roles of nuclear momentum (kinetic) couplings in electronic-state mixing during the decay process are analyzed in terms of complex natural orbitals, which are schematically represented in the conventional language of molecular symmetry of the Hartree-Fock orbitals.

  18. Rheology via nonequilibrium molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hoover, W.G.

    1982-10-01

    The equilibrium molecular dynamics formulated by Newton, Lagrange, and Hamilton has been modified in order to simulate rheologial molecular flows with fast computers. This modified Nonequilibrium Molecular Dynamics (NEMD) has been applied to fluid and solid deformations, under both homogeneous and shock conditions, as well as to the transport of heat. The irreversible heating associated with dissipation could be controlled by carrying out isothermal NEMD calculations. The new isothermal NEMD equations of motion are consistent with Gauss' 1829 Least-Constraint principle as well as certain microscopic equilibrium and nonequilibrium statistical formulations due to Gibbs and Boltzmann. Application of isothermal NEMD revealed high-frequency and high-strain-rate behavior for simple fluids which resembled the behavior of polymer solutions and melts at lower frequencies and strain rates. For solids NEMD produces plastic flows consistent with experimental observations at much lower strain rates. The new nonequilibrium methods also suggest novel formulations of thermodynamics in nonequilibrium systems and shed light on the failure of the Principle of Material Frame Indifference

  19. Multiscale simulations of anisotropic particles combining molecular dynamics and Green's function reaction dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vijaykumar, Adithya; Ouldridge, Thomas E.; ten Wolde, Pieter Rein; Bolhuis, Peter G.

    2017-03-01

    The modeling of complex reaction-diffusion processes in, for instance, cellular biochemical networks or self-assembling soft matter can be tremendously sped up by employing a multiscale algorithm which combines the mesoscopic Green's Function Reaction Dynamics (GFRD) method with explicit stochastic Brownian, Langevin, or deterministic molecular dynamics to treat reactants at the microscopic scale [A. Vijaykumar, P. G. Bolhuis, and P. R. ten Wolde, J. Chem. Phys. 143, 214102 (2015)]. Here we extend this multiscale MD-GFRD approach to include the orientational dynamics that is crucial to describe the anisotropic interactions often prevalent in biomolecular systems. We present the novel algorithm focusing on Brownian dynamics only, although the methodology is generic. We illustrate the novel algorithm using a simple patchy particle model. After validation of the algorithm, we discuss its performance. The rotational Brownian dynamics MD-GFRD multiscale method will open up the possibility for large scale simulations of protein signalling networks.

  20. First-principles molecular dynamics for metals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fernando, G.W.; Qian, G.; Weinert, M.; Davenport, J.W.

    1989-01-01

    A Car-Parrinello-type first-principles molecular-dynamics approach capable of treating the partial occupancy of electronic states that occurs at the Fermi level in a metal is presented. The algorithms used to study metals are both simple and computationally efficient. We also discuss the connection between ordinary electronic-structure calculations and molecular-dynamics simulations as well as the role of Brillouin-zone sampling. This extension should be useful not only for metallic solids but also for solids that become metals in their liquid and/or amorphous phases

  1. How Dynamic Visualization Technology Can Support Molecular Reasoning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levy, Dalit

    2013-01-01

    This paper reports the results of a study aimed at exploring the advantages of dynamic visualization for the development of better understanding of molecular processes. We designed a technology-enhanced curriculum module in which high school chemistry students conduct virtual experiments with dynamic molecular visualizations of solid, liquid, and…

  2. Molecular dynamics study on the interaction of a dislocation and radiation induced defect clusters in Fcc crystals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hideo, Kaburaki; Tomoko, Kadoyoshi; Futoshi, Shimizu; Hajime; Kimizuka; Shiro, Jitsukawa

    2003-01-01

    Irradiation of high-energy neutrons and charged particles into solids is known to cause a significant change in mechanical properties, in particular, hardening of metals. Hardening of solids arises as a result of interactions of dislocations with irradiation induced defect clusters. Molecular dynamics method combined with the visualization method has been used to elucidate these complex pinning structures in details. In particular, we have successfully observed the transient process for the formation of a super-jog from an edge dislocation and interstitial and vacancy clusters under irradiation cascade conditions. Parallel molecular dynamics programs, called as Parallel Molecular Dynamics Stencil (PMDS), have been developed in order to perform these large scale simulations for materials simulations. The contents of the program and its parallel performance are also reported. (authors)

  3. Physical adsorption and molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cohan, N.V.

    1981-01-01

    Some aspects of noble gases adsorption (except He) on graphite substracts are reviewed. Experimental results from this adsorption are analyzed and compared with molecular dynamics calculations. (L.C.) [pt

  4. Classical molecular dynamics simulation of nuclear fuels

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Devanathan, R.; Krack, M.; Bertolus, M.

    2015-01-01

    Molecular dynamics simulation using forces calculated from empirical potentials, commonly called classical molecular dynamics, is well suited to study primary damage production by irradiation, defect interactions with fission gas atoms, gas bubble nucleation, grain boundary effects on defect and gas bubble evolution in nuclear fuel, and the resulting changes in thermomechanical properties. This enables one to obtain insights into fundamental mechanisms governing the behaviour of nuclear fuel, as well as parameters that can be used as inputs for mesoscale models. The interaction potentials used for the force calculations are generated by fitting properties of interest to experimental data and electronic structure calculations (see Chapter 12). We present here the different types of potentials currently available for UO 2 and illustrations of applications to the description of the behaviour of this material under irradiation. The results obtained from the present generation of potentials for UO 2 are qualitatively similar, but quantitatively different. There is a need to refine these existing potentials to provide a better representation of the performance of polycrystalline fuel under a variety of operating conditions, develop models that are equipped to handle deviations from stoichiometry, and validate the models and assumptions used. (authors)

  5. Accelerating Molecular Dynamic Simulation on Graphics Processing Units

    Science.gov (United States)

    Friedrichs, Mark S.; Eastman, Peter; Vaidyanathan, Vishal; Houston, Mike; Legrand, Scott; Beberg, Adam L.; Ensign, Daniel L.; Bruns, Christopher M.; Pande, Vijay S.

    2009-01-01

    We describe a complete implementation of all-atom protein molecular dynamics running entirely on a graphics processing unit (GPU), including all standard force field terms, integration, constraints, and implicit solvent. We discuss the design of our algorithms and important optimizations needed to fully take advantage of a GPU. We evaluate its performance, and show that it can be more than 700 times faster than a conventional implementation running on a single CPU core. PMID:19191337

  6. Magnetic effects on the solvent properties investigated by molecular dynamics simulation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Moosavi, Fatemeh, E-mail: moosavibaigi@um.ac.ir; Gholizadeh, Mostafa

    2014-03-15

    This paper investigates how an external constant magnetic field in the Z-direction affects the performance of a solvent. The molecular dynamics simulation comprised common inorganic and organic solvents including water, acetone, acetonitrile, toluene, and n-hexane at the ambient temperature and pressure. A static magnetic field applied in the simulation process is able to reduce the solvent mobility in the solution in order to enhance the solvent–solute reaction. Simulation results show that the diffusivity decreases because of increasing the effective interactions. Besides, magnetic field reduces the volume of the solvent and increases the strength of the hydrogen bonds by maximizing attractive electrostatic and vdW interactions caused by changes in the radial distribution function of the solvents. Hydrogen-bonding characteristics of solvents investigated by molecular dynamics simulations were evidence for the hydrogen bonding strength of O···H that is a more efficient intermolecular hydrogen-bonding in comparison with N···H. - Highlights: • Molecular dynamics simulation technique investigates the effect of magnetic field on transport dynamics inside the solvent bulk. • External constant magnetic field influences on intermolecular interactions, thermophysics, and transport properties of the solvents. • Applying magnetic field strengthened hydrogen bond maximizes attractive electrostatic interactions, charge distribution becomes stronger, and the molecule mobility is demoted. • The low diffusivity of the solvents in the solutions increases the performance of the interactions and promotes the interactions. • On introducing a magnetic field of flux density parallel to the Z-direction, solvent acts as an obstacle to diffusion of solutes.

  7. Thomas-Fermi molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Clerouin, J.; Pollock, E.L.; Zerah, G.

    1992-01-01

    A three-dimensional density-functional molecular-dynamics code is developed for the Thomas-Fermi density functional as a prototype for density functionals using only the density. Following Car and Parrinello [Phys. Rev. Lett. 55, 2471 (1985)], the electronic density is treated as a dynamical variable. The electronic densities are verified against a multi-ion Thomas-Fermi algorithm due to Parker [Phys. Rev. A 38, 2205 (1988)]. As an initial application, the effect of electronic polarization in enhancing ionic diffusion in strongly coupled plasmas is demonstrated

  8. Molecular dynamics for dense matter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Maruyama, Toshiki; Chiba, Satoshi; Watanabe, Gentaro

    2012-01-01

    We review a molecular dynamics method for nucleon many-body systems called quantum molecular dynamics (QMD), and our studies using this method. These studies address the structure and the dynamics of nuclear matter relevant to neutron star crusts, supernova cores, and heavy-ion collisions. A key advantage of QMD is that we can study dynamical processes of nucleon many-body systems without any assumptions about the nuclear structure. First, we focus on the inhomogeneous structures of low-density nuclear matter consisting not only of spherical nuclei but also of nuclear “pasta”, i.e., rod-like and slab-like nuclei. We show that pasta phases can appear in the ground and equilibrium states of nuclear matter without assuming nuclear shape. Next, we show our simulation of compression of nuclear matter which corresponds to the collapsing stage of supernovae. With the increase in density, a crystalline solid of spherical nuclei changes to a triangular lattice of rods by connecting neighboring nuclei. Finally, we discuss fragment formation in expanding nuclear matter. Our results suggest that a generally accepted scenario based on the liquid–gas phase transition is not plausible at lower temperatures. (author)

  9. Molecular dynamics for dense matter

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maruyama, Toshiki; Watanabe, Gentaro; Chiba, Satoshi

    2012-08-01

    We review a molecular dynamics method for nucleon many-body systems called quantum molecular dynamics (QMD), and our studies using this method. These studies address the structure and the dynamics of nuclear matter relevant to neutron star crusts, supernova cores, and heavy-ion collisions. A key advantage of QMD is that we can study dynamical processes of nucleon many-body systems without any assumptions about the nuclear structure. First, we focus on the inhomogeneous structures of low-density nuclear matter consisting not only of spherical nuclei but also of nuclear "pasta", i.e., rod-like and slab-like nuclei. We show that pasta phases can appear in the ground and equilibrium states of nuclear matter without assuming nuclear shape. Next, we show our simulation of compression of nuclear matter which corresponds to the collapsing stage of supernovae. With the increase in density, a crystalline solid of spherical nuclei changes to a triangular lattice of rods by connecting neighboring nuclei. Finally, we discuss fragment formation in expanding nuclear matter. Our results suggest that a generally accepted scenario based on the liquid-gas phase transition is not plausible at lower temperatures.

  10. Water Dynamics in Protein Hydration Shells: The Molecular Origins of the Dynamical Perturbation

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-01-01

    Protein hydration shell dynamics play an important role in biochemical processes including protein folding, enzyme function, and molecular recognition. We present here a comparison of the reorientation dynamics of individual water molecules within the hydration shell of a series of globular proteins: acetylcholinesterase, subtilisin Carlsberg, lysozyme, and ubiquitin. Molecular dynamics simulations and analytical models are used to access site-resolved information on hydration shell dynamics and to elucidate the molecular origins of the dynamical perturbation of hydration shell water relative to bulk water. We show that all four proteins have very similar hydration shell dynamics, despite their wide range of sizes and functions, and differing secondary structures. We demonstrate that this arises from the similar local surface topology and surface chemical composition of the four proteins, and that such local factors alone are sufficient to rationalize the hydration shell dynamics. We propose that these conclusions can be generalized to a wide range of globular proteins. We also show that protein conformational fluctuations induce a dynamical heterogeneity within the hydration layer. We finally address the effect of confinement on hydration shell dynamics via a site-resolved analysis and connect our results to experiments via the calculation of two-dimensional infrared spectra. PMID:24479585

  11. The structure of molecular liquids. Neutron diffraction and molecular dynamics simulations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bianchi, L.

    2000-05-01

    Neutron diffraction (ND) measurements on liquid methanol (CD 3 OD, CD 3 O(H/D), CD 3 OH) under ambient conditions were performed to obtain the distinct (intra- + inter-molecular), G dist (r) and inter-molecular, G inter (r) radial distribution functions (rdfs) for the three samples. The H/D substitution on hydroxyl-hydrogen (Ho) has been used to extract the partial distribution functions, G XHo (r) (X=C, O, and H - a methyl hydrogen) and G XX (r) at both the distinct and inter-molecular levels from the difference techniques of ND. The O-Ho bond length, which has been the subject of controversy in the past, is found purely from the distinct partial distribution function, G XHo (r) to be 0.98 ± 0.01 A. The C-H distance obtained from the distinct G XX (r) partial is 1.08 ± 0.01 A. These distances determined by fitting an intra-molecular model to the total distinct structure functions are 0.961 ± 0.001 A and 1.096 ± 0.001 A, respectively. The inter-molecular G XX (r) function, dominated by contributions from the methyl groups, apart from showing broad oscillations extending up to ∼14 A is featureless, mainly because of cancellation effects from six contributing pairs. The Ho-Ho partial pair distribution function (pdf), g HoHo (r), determined from the second order difference, shows that only one other Ho atom can be found within a mean Ho-Ho separation of 2.36 A. The average position of the O-Ho hydrogen bond determined for the first time purely from experimental inter-molecular G XHo (r) partial distribution function is found to be at 1.75 ± 0.03 A. The experimental structural results at the partial distribution level are compared with those obtained from molecular dynamics (MD) simulations performed in NVE ensemble by using both 3- and 6-site force field models for the first time in this study. The MD simulations with both the models reproduce the ND rdfs rather well. However, discrepancies begin to appear between the simulated and the experimental partial

  12. Refinement of homology-based protein structures by molecular dynamics simulation techniques

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Fan, H; Mark, AE

    The use of classical molecular dynamics simulations, performed in explicit water, for the refinement of structural models of proteins generated ab initio or based on homology has been investigated. The study involved a test set of 15 proteins that were previously used by Baker and coworkers to

  13. Single asperity nanocontacts: Comparison between molecular dynamics simulations and continuum mechanics models

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Solhjoo, Soheil; Vakis, Antonis I.

    Abstract Using classical molecular dynamics, atomic scale simulations of normal contact between a nominally flat substrate and different atomistic and non-atomistic spherical particles were performed to investigate the applicability of classical contact theories at the nanoscale, and further

  14. High-Performance Modeling of Carbon Dioxide Sequestration by Coupling Reservoir Simulation and Molecular Dynamics

    KAUST Repository

    Bao, Kai

    2015-10-26

    The present work describes a parallel computational framework for carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration simulation by coupling reservoir simulation and molecular dynamics (MD) on massively parallel high-performance-computing (HPC) systems. In this framework, a parallel reservoir simulator, reservoir-simulation toolbox (RST), solves the flow and transport equations that describe the subsurface flow behavior, whereas the MD simulations are performed to provide the required physical parameters. Technologies from several different fields are used to make this novel coupled system work efficiently. One of the major applications of the framework is the modeling of large-scale CO2 sequestration for long-term storage in subsurface geological formations, such as depleted oil and gas reservoirs and deep saline aquifers, which has been proposed as one of the few attractive and practical solutions to reduce CO2 emissions and address the global-warming threat. Fine grids and accurate prediction of the properties of fluid mixtures under geological conditions are essential for accurate simulations. In this work, CO2 sequestration is presented as a first example for coupling reservoir simulation and MD, although the framework can be extended naturally to the full multiphase multicomponent compositional flow simulation to handle more complicated physical processes in the future. Accuracy and scalability analysis are performed on an IBM BlueGene/P and on an IBM BlueGene/Q, the latest IBM supercomputer. Results show good accuracy of our MD simulations compared with published data, and good scalability is observed with the massively parallel HPC systems. The performance and capacity of the proposed framework are well-demonstrated with several experiments with hundreds of millions to one billion cells. To the best of our knowledge, the present work represents the first attempt to couple reservoir simulation and molecular simulation for large-scale modeling. Because of the complexity of

  15. Physical properties of Cu nanoparticles: A molecular dynamics study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kart, H.H.; Yildirim, H.; Ozdemir Kart, S.; Çağin, T.

    2014-01-01

    Thermodynamical, structural and dynamical properties of Cu nanoparticles are investigated by using Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations at various temperatures. In this work, MD simulations of the Cu-nanoparticles are performed by means of the MPiSiM codes by utilizing from Quantum Sutton-Chen (Q-SC) many-body force potential to define the interactions between the Cu atoms. The diameters of the copper nanoparticles are varied from 2 nm to 10 nm. MD simulations of Cu nanoparticles are carried out at low and high temperatures to study solid and liquid properties of Cu nanoparticles. Simulation results such as melting point, radial distribution function are compared with the available experimental bulk results. Radial distribution function, mean square displacement, diffusion coefficient, Lindemann index and Honeycutt–Andersen index are also calculated for estimating the melting point of the Copper nanoparticles. - Highlights: • Solid and liquid properties of Cu nanoparticles are studied. • Molecular dynamics utilizing the Quantum Sutton Chen potential is used in this work. • Melting temperatures of nanoparticles are strongly depended on nanoparticle sizes. • Heat capacity, radial distribution function and diffusion coefficients are studied. • Structures of nanoparticles are analyzed by Lindemann and Honeycutt–Andersen index

  16. A molecular dynamics study of lithium-containing aprotic heterocyclic ionic liquid electrolytes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lourenço, Tuanan C.; Zhang, Yong; Costa, Luciano T.; Maginn, Edward J.

    2018-05-01

    Classical molecular dynamics simulations were performed on twelve different ionic liquids containing aprotic heterocyclic anions doped with Li+. These ionic liquids have been shown to be promising electrolytes for lithium ion batteries. Self-diffusivities, lithium transference numbers, densities, and free volumes were computed as a function of lithium concentration. The dynamics and free volume decreased with increasing lithium concentration, and the trends were rationalized by examining the changes to the liquid structure. Of those examined in the present work, it was found that (methyloxymethyl)triethylphosphonium triazolide ionic liquids have the overall best performance.

  17. Multilevel summation with B-spline interpolation for pairwise interactions in molecular dynamics simulations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hardy, David J.; Schulten, Klaus; Wolff, Matthew A.; Skeel, Robert D.; Xia, Jianlin

    2016-01-01

    The multilevel summation method for calculating electrostatic interactions in molecular dynamics simulations constructs an approximation to a pairwise interaction kernel and its gradient, which can be evaluated at a cost that scales linearly with the number of atoms. The method smoothly splits the kernel into a sum of partial kernels of increasing range and decreasing variability with the longer-range parts interpolated from grids of increasing coarseness. Multilevel summation is especially appropriate in the context of dynamics and minimization, because it can produce continuous gradients. This article explores the use of B-splines to increase the accuracy of the multilevel summation method (for nonperiodic boundaries) without incurring additional computation other than a preprocessing step (whose cost also scales linearly). To obtain accurate results efficiently involves technical difficulties, which are overcome by a novel preprocessing algorithm. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the resulting method offers substantial improvements in accuracy and that its performance is competitive with an implementation of the fast multipole method in general and markedly better for Hamiltonian formulations of molecular dynamics. The improvement is great enough to establish multilevel summation as a serious contender for calculating pairwise interactions in molecular dynamics simulations. In particular, the method appears to be uniquely capable for molecular dynamics in two situations, nonperiodic boundary conditions and massively parallel computation, where the fast Fourier transform employed in the particle–mesh Ewald method falls short.

  18. Molecular dynamics with deterministic and stochastic numerical methods

    CERN Document Server

    Leimkuhler, Ben

    2015-01-01

    This book describes the mathematical underpinnings of algorithms used for molecular dynamics simulation, including both deterministic and stochastic numerical methods. Molecular dynamics is one of the most versatile and powerful methods of modern computational science and engineering and is used widely in chemistry, physics, materials science and biology. Understanding the foundations of numerical methods means knowing how to select the best one for a given problem (from the wide range of techniques on offer) and how to create new, efficient methods to address particular challenges as they arise in complex applications.  Aimed at a broad audience, this book presents the basic theory of Hamiltonian mechanics and stochastic differential equations, as well as topics including symplectic numerical methods, the handling of constraints and rigid bodies, the efficient treatment of Langevin dynamics, thermostats to control the molecular ensemble, multiple time-stepping, and the dissipative particle dynamics method...

  19. Molecular ions, Rydberg spectroscopy and dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jungen, Ch.

    2015-01-01

    Ion spectroscopy, Rydberg spectroscopy and molecular dynamics are closely related subjects. Multichannel quantum defect theory is a theoretical approach which draws on this close relationship and thereby becomes a powerful tool for the study of systems consisting of a positively charged molecular ion core interacting with an electron which may be loosely bound or freely scattering

  20. Molecular ions, Rydberg spectroscopy and dynamics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jungen, Ch. [Laboratoire Aimé Cotton, Université de Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay (France)

    2015-01-22

    Ion spectroscopy, Rydberg spectroscopy and molecular dynamics are closely related subjects. Multichannel quantum defect theory is a theoretical approach which draws on this close relationship and thereby becomes a powerful tool for the study of systems consisting of a positively charged molecular ion core interacting with an electron which may be loosely bound or freely scattering.

  1. Clustering Molecular Dynamics Trajectories for Optimizing Docking Experiments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Renata De Paris

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Molecular dynamics simulations of protein receptors have become an attractive tool for rational drug discovery. However, the high computational cost of employing molecular dynamics trajectories in virtual screening of large repositories threats the feasibility of this task. Computational intelligence techniques have been applied in this context, with the ultimate goal of reducing the overall computational cost so the task can become feasible. Particularly, clustering algorithms have been widely used as a means to reduce the dimensionality of molecular dynamics trajectories. In this paper, we develop a novel methodology for clustering entire trajectories using structural features from the substrate-binding cavity of the receptor in order to optimize docking experiments on a cloud-based environment. The resulting partition was selected based on three clustering validity criteria, and it was further validated by analyzing the interactions between 20 ligands and a fully flexible receptor (FFR model containing a 20 ns molecular dynamics simulation trajectory. Our proposed methodology shows that taking into account features of the substrate-binding cavity as input for the k-means algorithm is a promising technique for accurately selecting ensembles of representative structures tailored to a specific ligand.

  2. Molecular Dynamics and Morphology of High Performance Elastomers and Fibers by Solid State NMR

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-06-30

    nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR) spectroscopy to investigate the chemical structure and physical state of the residual phosphorous in PBO fiber...ssNMR) spectroscopy to investigate the chemical structure and physical state of the residual phosphorous in PBO fiber, which has been long suspected to...Jason Cain, Jian H. Yu, David Veysset, Keith A. Nelson . Probing the Influence of Molecular Dynamics of Matrix Elastomers on Ballistic Impact Back-face

  3. Molecular dynamics simulation of a DNA containing a single strand break

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yamaguchi, H.; Siebers, G.; Furukawa, A.; Otagiri, N.; Osman, R

    2002-07-01

    Molecular dynamics simulations were performed for a dodecamer DNA containing a single strand break (SSB), which has been represented by a 3'-OH deoxyribose and 5'-OH phosphate in the middle of the strand. Molecular force field parameters of the 5'-OH phosphate region were determined from an ab initio calculation at the HF/6-31G level using the program package GAMESS. The DNA was placed in a periodic boundary box with water molecules and Na+ counter-ions to produce a neutralised system. After minimisation, the system was heated to 300 K, equilibrated and a production run at constant NTP was executed for 1 ns using AMBER 4.1. Snapshots of the SSB-containing DNA and a detailed analysis of the equilibriated average structure revealed surprisingly small conformational changes compared to normal DNA. However, dynamic properties calculated using the essential dynamics method showed some features that may be important for the recognition of this damage by repair enzymes. (author)

  4. Molecular Dynamics: New Frontier in Personalized Medicine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sneha, P; Doss, C George Priya

    2016-01-01

    The field of drug discovery has witnessed infinite development over the last decade with the demand for discovery of novel efficient lead compounds. Although the development of novel compounds in this field has seen large failure, a breakthrough in this area might be the establishment of personalized medicine. The trend of personalized medicine has shown stupendous growth being a hot topic after the successful completion of Human Genome Project and 1000 genomes pilot project. Genomic variant such as SNPs play a vital role with respect to inter individual's disease susceptibility and drug response. Hence, identification of such genetic variants has to be performed before administration of a drug. This process requires high-end techniques to understand the complexity of the molecules which might bring an insight to understand the compounds at their molecular level. To sustenance this, field of bioinformatics plays a crucial role in revealing the molecular mechanism of the mutation and thereby designing a drug for an individual in fast and affordable manner. High-end computational methods, such as molecular dynamics (MD) simulation has proved to be a constitutive approach to detecting the minor changes associated with an SNP for better understanding of the structural and functional relationship. The parameters used in molecular dynamic simulation elucidate different properties of a macromolecule, such as protein stability and flexibility. MD along with docking analysis can reveal the synergetic effect of an SNP in protein-ligand interaction and provides a foundation for designing a particular drug molecule for an individual. This compelling application of computational power and the advent of other technologies have paved a promising way toward personalized medicine. In this in-depth review, we tried to highlight the different wings of MD toward personalized medicine. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulation of hydrogen fluoride at several thermodynamic states

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kreitmeir, M.; Bertagnolli, H.; Mortensen, Jens Jørgen

    2003-01-01

    Liquid hydrogen fluoride is a simple but interesting system for studies of the influence of hydrogen bonds on physical properties. We have performed ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of HF at several thermodynamic states, where we examine the microscopic structure of the liquid as well...

  6. A fermionic molecular dynamics technique to model nuclear matter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vantournhout, K.; Jachowicz, N.; Ryckebusch, J.

    2009-01-01

    Full text: At sub-nuclear densities of about 10 14 g/cm 3 , nuclear matter arranges itself in a variety of complex shapes. This can be the case in the crust of neutron stars and in core-collapse supernovae. These slab like and rod like structures, designated as nuclear pasta, have been modelled with classical molecular dynamics techniques. We present a technique, based on fermionic molecular dynamics, to model nuclear matter at sub-nuclear densities in a semi classical framework. The dynamical evolution of an antisymmetric ground state is described making the assumption of periodic boundary conditions. Adding the concepts of antisymmetry, spin and probability distributions to classical molecular dynamics, brings the dynamical description of nuclear matter to a quantum mechanical level. Applications of this model vary from investigation of macroscopic observables and the equation of state to the study of fundamental interactions on the microscopic structure of the matter. (author)

  7. Dynamical photo-induced electronic properties of molecular junctions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beltako, K.; Michelini, F.; Cavassilas, N.; Raymond, L.

    2018-03-01

    Nanoscale molecular-electronic devices and machines are emerging as promising functional elements, naturally flexible and efficient, for next-generation technologies. A deeper understanding of carrier dynamics in molecular junctions is expected to benefit many fields of nanoelectronics and power devices. We determine time-resolved charge current flowing at the donor-acceptor interface in molecular junctions connected to metallic electrodes by means of quantum transport simulations. The current is induced by the interaction of the donor with a Gaussian-shape femtosecond laser pulse. Effects of the molecular internal coupling, metal-molecule tunneling, and light-donor coupling on photocurrent are discussed. We then define the time-resolved local density of states which is proposed as an efficient tool to describe the absorbing molecule in contact with metallic electrodes. Non-equilibrium reorganization of hybridized molecular orbitals through the light-donor interaction gives rise to two phenomena: the dynamical Rabi shift and the appearance of Floquet-like states. Such insights into the dynamical photoelectronic structure of molecules are of strong interest for ultrafast spectroscopy and open avenues toward the possibility of analyzing and controlling the internal properties of quantum nanodevices with pump-push photocurrent spectroscopy.

  8. Dynamical processes in atomic and molecular physics

    CERN Document Server

    Ogurtsov, Gennadi

    2012-01-01

    Atomic and molecular physics underlie a basis for our knowledge of fundamental processes in nature and technology and in such applications as solid state physics, chemistry and biology. In recent years, atomic and molecular physics has undergone a revolutionary change due to great achievements in computing and experimental techniques. As a result, it has become possible to obtain information both on atomic and molecular characteristics and on dynamics of atomic and molecular processes. This e-book highlights the present state of investigations in the field of atomic and molecular physics. Rece

  9. Distance-Based Configurational Entropy of Proteins from Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fogolari, Federico; Corazza, Alessandra; Fortuna, Sara; Soler, Miguel Angel; VanSchouwen, Bryan; Brancolini, Giorgia; Corni, Stefano; Melacini, Giuseppe; Esposito, Gennaro

    2015-01-01

    Estimation of configurational entropy from molecular dynamics trajectories is a difficult task which is often performed using quasi-harmonic or histogram analysis. An entirely different approach, proposed recently, estimates local density distribution around each conformational sample by measuring the distance from its nearest neighbors. In this work we show this theoretically well grounded the method can be easily applied to estimate the entropy from conformational sampling. We consider a set of systems that are representative of important biomolecular processes. In particular: reference entropies for amino acids in unfolded proteins are obtained from a database of residues not participating in secondary structure elements;the conformational entropy of folding of β2-microglobulin is computed from molecular dynamics simulations using reference entropies for the unfolded state;backbone conformational entropy is computed from molecular dynamics simulations of four different states of the EPAC protein and compared with order parameters (often used as a measure of entropy);the conformational and rototranslational entropy of binding is computed from simulations of 20 tripeptides bound to the peptide binding protein OppA and of β2-microglobulin bound to a citrate coated gold surface. This work shows the potential of the method in the most representative biological processes involving proteins, and provides a valuable alternative, principally in the shown cases, where other approaches are problematic.

  10. Theory and application of quantum molecular dynamics

    CERN Document Server

    Zeng Hui Zhang, John

    1999-01-01

    This book provides a detailed presentation of modern quantum theories for treating the reaction dynamics of small molecular systems. Its main focus is on the recent development of successful quantum dynamics theories and computational methods for studying the molecular reactive scattering process, with specific applications given in detail for a number of benchmark chemical reaction systems in the gas phase and the gas surface. In contrast to traditional books on collision in physics focusing on abstract theory for nonreactive scattering, this book deals with both the development and the appli

  11. Multiple time step integrators in ab initio molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Luehr, Nathan; Martínez, Todd J.; Markland, Thomas E.

    2014-01-01

    Multiple time-scale algorithms exploit the natural separation of time-scales in chemical systems to greatly accelerate the efficiency of molecular dynamics simulations. Although the utility of these methods in systems where the interactions are described by empirical potentials is now well established, their application to ab initio molecular dynamics calculations has been limited by difficulties associated with splitting the ab initio potential into fast and slowly varying components. Here we present two schemes that enable efficient time-scale separation in ab initio calculations: one based on fragment decomposition and the other on range separation of the Coulomb operator in the electronic Hamiltonian. We demonstrate for both water clusters and a solvated hydroxide ion that multiple time-scale molecular dynamics allows for outer time steps of 2.5 fs, which are as large as those obtained when such schemes are applied to empirical potentials, while still allowing for bonds to be broken and reformed throughout the dynamics. This permits computational speedups of up to 4.4x, compared to standard Born-Oppenheimer ab initio molecular dynamics with a 0.5 fs time step, while maintaining the same energy conservation and accuracy

  12. Dynamic signature of molecular association in methanol

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bertrand, C. E.; Copley, J. R. D.; Faraone, A.; Self, J. L.

    2016-01-01

    Quasielastic neutron scattering measurements and molecular dynamics simulations were combined to investigate the collective dynamics of deuterated methanol, CD 3 OD. In the experimentally determined dynamic structure factor, a slow, non-Fickian mode was observed in addition to the standard density-fluctuation heat mode. The simulation results indicate that the slow dynamical process originates from the hydrogen bonding of methanol molecules. The qualitative behavior of this mode is similar to the previously observed α-relaxation in supercooled water [M. C. Bellissent-Funel et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 3644 (2000)] which also originates from the formation and dissolution of hydrogen-bonded associates (supramolecular clusters). In methanol, however, this mode is distinguishable well above the freezing transition. This finding indicates that an emergent slow mode is not unique to supercooled water, but may instead be a general feature of hydrogen-bonding liquids and associating molecular liquids.

  13. Molecular dynamics for fermions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Feldmeier, H.; Schnack, J.

    2000-02-01

    The time-dependent variational principle for many-body trial states is used to discuss the relation between the approaches of different molecular dynamics models to describe indistinguishable fermions. Early attempts to include effects of the Pauli principle by means of nonlocal potentials as well as more recent models which work with antisymmetrized many-body states are reviewed under these premises. (orig.)

  14. Molecular dynamics simulation of nanocrystalline nickel: structure and mechanical properties

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Swygenhoven, H. van [Paul Scherrer Inst. (PSI), Villigen (Switzerland); Caro, A. [Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica, San Carlos de Bariloche (Argentina). Centro Atomico Bariloche

    1997-09-01

    Molecular dynamics computer simulations of low temperature elastic and plastic deformation of Ni nanophase samples (3-7 nm) are performed. The samples are polycrystals nucleated from different seeds, with random locations and orientations. Bulk and Young`s modulus, onset of plastic deformation and mechanism responsible for the plastic behaviour are studied and compared with the behaviour of coarse grained samples. (author) 1 fig., 3 refs.

  15. Molecular dynamics simulation of nanocrystalline nickel: structure and mechanical properties

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Swygenhoven, H. van; Caro, A.

    1997-01-01

    Molecular dynamics computer simulations of low temperature elastic and plastic deformation of Ni nanophase samples (3-7 nm) are performed. The samples are polycrystals nucleated from different seeds, with random locations and orientations. Bulk and Young's modulus, onset of plastic deformation and mechanism responsible for the plastic behaviour are studied and compared with the behaviour of coarse grained samples. (author) 1 fig., 3 refs

  16. Molecular dynamics study of charged dendrimers in salt-free solution : effect of counterions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gurtovenko, A.A.; Lyulin, S.V.; Karttunen, M.E.J.; Vattulainen, I.

    2006-01-01

    Polyamidoamine dendrimers, being protonated under physiological conditions, represent a promising class of nonviral, nanosized vectors for drug and gene delivery. We performed extensive molecular dynamics simulations of a generic model dendrimer in a salt-free solution with dendrimer’s terminal

  17. Molecular sieving through a graphene nanopore: non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Chengzhen Sun; Bofeng Bai

    2017-01-01

    Two-dimensional graphene nanopores have shown great promise as ultra-permeable molecular sieves based on their size-sieving effects.We design a nitrogen/hydrogen modified graphene nanopore and conduct a transient non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation on its molecular sieving effects.The distinct time-varying molecular crossing numbers show that this special nanopore can efficiently sieve CO2 and H2S molecules from CH4 molecules with high selectivity.By analyzing the molecular structure and pore functionalization-related molecular orientation and permeable zone in the nanopore,density distribution in the molecular adsorption layer on the graphene surface,as well as other features,the molecular sieving mechanisms of graphene nanopores are revealed.Finally,several implications on the design of highly-efficient graphene nanopores,especially for determining the porosity and chemical functionalization,as gas separation membranes are summarized based on the identified phenomena and mechanisms.

  18. Classical and quantum molecular dynamics in NMR spectra

    CERN Document Server

    Szymański, Sławomir

    2018-01-01

    The book provides a detailed account of how condensed-phase molecular dynamics are reflected in the line shapes of NMR spectra. The theories establishing connections between random, time-dependent molecular processes and lineshape effects are exposed in depth. Special emphasis is placed on the theoretical aspects, involving in particular intermolecular processes in solution, and molecular symmetry issues. The Liouville super-operator formalism is briefly introduced and used wherever it is beneficial for the transparency of presentation. The proposed formal descriptions of the discussed problems are sufficiently detailed to be implemented on a computer. Practical applications of the theory in solid- and liquid-phase studies are illustrated with appropriate experimental examples, exposing the potential of the lineshape method in elucidating molecular dynamics NMR-observable molecular phenomena where quantization of the spatial nuclear degrees of freedom is crucial are addressed in the last part of the book. As ...

  19. Molecular dynamics on diffusive time scales from the phase-field-crystal equation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chan, Pak Yuen; Goldenfeld, Nigel; Dantzig, Jon

    2009-03-01

    We extend the phase-field-crystal model to accommodate exact atomic configurations and vacancies by requiring the order parameter to be non-negative. The resulting theory dictates the number of atoms and describes the motion of each of them. By solving the dynamical equation of the model, which is a partial differential equation, we are essentially performing molecular dynamics simulations on diffusive time scales. To illustrate this approach, we calculate the two-point correlation function of a fluid.

  20. Multiscale equation-free algorithms for molecular dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abi Mansour, Andrew

    Molecular dynamics is a physics-based computational tool that has been widely employed to study the dynamics and structure of macromolecules and their assemblies at the atomic scale. However, the efficiency of molecular dynamics simulation is limited because of the broad spectrum of timescales involved. To overcome this limitation, an equation-free algorithm is presented for simulating these systems using a multiscale model cast in terms of atomistic and coarse-grained variables. Both variables are evolved in time in such a way that the cross-talk between short and long scales is preserved. In this way, the coarse-grained variables guide the evolution of the atom-resolved states, while the latter provide the Newtonian physics for the former. While the atomistic variables are evolved using short molecular dynamics runs, time advancement at the coarse-grained level is achieved with a scheme that uses information from past and future states of the system while accounting for both the stochastic and deterministic features of the coarse-grained dynamics. To complete the multiscale cycle, an atom-resolved state consistent with the updated coarse-grained variables is recovered using algorithms from mathematical optimization. This multiscale paradigm is extended to nanofluidics using concepts from hydrodynamics, and it is demonstrated for macromolecular and nanofluidic systems. A toolkit is developed for prototyping these algorithms, which are then implemented within the GROMACS simulation package and released as an open source multiscale simulator.

  1. Molecular-dynamics simulation of displacement cascades in Cu: analysis of replacement sequences

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    King, W.E.; Benedek, R.

    1981-01-01

    Molecular-dynamics computer simulations of displacement cascades in copper have been performed for recoil energies up to 450 eV. Statistical analyses of the atomic replacements are presented. Linear replacement sequence lengths are extremely short on the average. The effect of the cooling phase of the cascade is discussed

  2. The consistency of large concerted motions in proteins in molecular dynamics simulations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Groot, B.L.; van Aalten, D.M.F.; Amadei, A; Berendsen, H.J.C.

    1996-01-01

    A detailed investigation is presented into the effect of limited sampling time and small changes in the force field on molecular dynamics simulations of a protein. Thirteen independent simulations of the B1 IgG-binding domain of streptococcal protein G were performed, with small changes in the

  3. Thermal conductivity of ZnTe investigated by molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang Hanfu; Chu Weiguo

    2009-01-01

    The thermal conductivity of ZnTe with zinc-blende structure has been computed by equilibrium molecular dynamics method based on Green-Kubo formalism. A Tersoff's potential is adopted in the simulation to model the atomic interactions. The calculations are performed as a function of temperature up to 800 K. The calculated thermal conductivities are in agreement with the experimental values between 150 K and 300 K, while the results above the room temperature are comparable with the Slack's equation.

  4. Quantum molecular dynamics simulations of thermophysical properties of fluid ethane.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Yujuan; Wang, Cong; Zheng, Fawei; Zhang, Ping

    2012-12-01

    We have performed first-principles molecular-dynamics simulations based on density-functional theory to study the thermophysical properties of ethane under extreme conditions. We present results for the equation of state of fluid ethane in the warm dense region. The optical conductivity is calculated via the Kubo-Greenwood formula from which the dc conductivity and optical reflectivity are derived. The close correlation between the nonmetal-metal transition of ethane and its decomposition, that ethane dissociates significantly into molecular and/or atomic hydrogen and some long alkane chains, has been systematically studied by analyzing the optical conductivity spectra, pair correlation functions, electronic density of states, and charge density distribution of fluid ethane.

  5. Molecular stopwatches, cogwheels and ``spinflakes'': studying the dynamics of molecular superrotors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Korobenko, Aleksey; Milner, Alexander; Hepburn, John; Milner, Valery

    2015-05-01

    Using the technique of an optical centrifuge, we excite diatomic molecules to ultrafast synchronous rotation. Femtosecond velocity-map imaging allows us to visualize and study the coherent dynamics of molecular superrotors under field free conditions and in external magnetic field. We demonstrate that when the created rotational wave packet is narrow, its free evolution is nondispersing and follows the motion of a classically rotating dumbbell or a hand of the smallest natural stopwatch. For wider rotational distributions, we observe the breakdown of classical rotation, when a dumbbell shape changes to that of a ``quantum cogwheel'' - a molecular state simultaneously aligned along multiple direction. Our measurements in external magnetic field reveal other peculiar aspects of the rich dynamics of molecular superrotors. The rotation of a non-magnetic molecule interacts with the applied field only weakly, giving rise to slow precession of the molecular angular momentum around the field direction. In contrast, the electronic spin of a paramagnetic superrotor mediates this interaction, causing the initial disk-like angular distribution to split into several spatial components, each precessing with its own frequency determined by the spin projection.

  6. Identification of anti-filarial leads against aspartate semialdehyde dehydrogenase of Wolbachia endosymbiont of Brugia malayi: combined molecular docking and molecular dynamics approaches.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amala, Mathimaran; Rajamanikandan, Sundaraj; Prabhu, Dhamodharan; Surekha, Kanagarajan; Jeyakanthan, Jeyaraman

    2018-02-06

    Lymphatic filariasis is a debilitating vector borne parasitic disease that infects human lymphatic system by nematode Brugia malayi. Currently available anti-filarial drugs are effective only on the larval stages of parasite. So far, no effective drugs are available for humans to treat filarial infections. In this regard, aspartate semialdehyde dehydrogenase (ASDase) in lysine biosynthetic pathway from Wolbachia endosymbiont Brugia malayi represents an attractive therapeutic target for the development of novel anti-filarial agents. In this present study, molecular modeling combined with molecular dynamics simulations and structure-based virtual screening were performed to identify potent lead molecules against ASDase. Based on Glide score, toxicity profile, binding affinity and mode of interactions with the ASDase, five potent lead molecules were selected. The molecular docking and dynamics results revealed that the amino acid residues Arg103, Asn133, Cys134, Gln161, Ser164, Lys218, Arg239, His246, and Asn321 plays a crucial role in effective binding of Top leads into the active site of ASDase. The stability of the ASDase-lead complexes was confirmed by running the 30 ns molecular dynamics simulations. The pharmacokinetic properties of the identified lead molecules are in the acceptable range. Furthermore, density functional theory and binding free energy calculations were performed to rank the lead molecules. Thus, the identified lead molecules can be used for the development of anti-filarial agents to combat the pathogenecity of Brugia malayi.

  7. Molecular quantum dynamics. From theory to applications

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gatti, Fabien

    2014-01-01

    An educational and accessible introduction to the field of molecular quantum dynamics. Illustrates the importance of the topic for broad areas of science: from astrophysics and the physics of the atmosphere, over elementary processes in chemistry, to biological processes. Presents chosen examples of striking applications, highlighting success stories, summarized by the internationally renowned experts. Including a foreword by Lorenz Cederbaum (University Heidelberg, Germany). This book focuses on current applications of molecular quantum dynamics. Examples from all main subjects in the field, presented by the internationally renowned experts, illustrate the importance of the domain. Recent success in helping to understand experimental observations in fields like heterogeneous catalysis, photochemistry, reactive scattering, optical spectroscopy, or femto- and attosecond chemistry and spectroscopy underline that nuclear quantum mechanical effects affect many areas of chemical and physical research. In contrast to standard quantum chemistry calculations, where the nuclei are treated classically, molecular quantum dynamics can cover quantum mechanical effects in their motion. Many examples, ranging from fundamental to applied problems, are known today that are impacted by nuclear quantum mechanical effects, including phenomena like tunneling, zero point energy effects, or non-adiabatic transitions. Being important to correctly understand many observations in chemical, organic and biological systems, or for the understanding of molecular spectroscopy, the range of applications covered in this book comprises broad areas of science: from astrophysics and the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, over elementary processes in chemistry, to biological processes (such as the first steps of photosynthesis or vision). Nevertheless, many researchers refrain from entering this domain. The book ''Molecular Quantum Dynamics'' offers them an accessible introduction. Although the

  8. Molecular quantum dynamics. From theory to applications

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gatti, Fabien (ed.) [Montpellier 2 Univ. (France). Inst. Charles Gerhardt - CNRS 5253

    2014-09-01

    An educational and accessible introduction to the field of molecular quantum dynamics. Illustrates the importance of the topic for broad areas of science: from astrophysics and the physics of the atmosphere, over elementary processes in chemistry, to biological processes. Presents chosen examples of striking applications, highlighting success stories, summarized by the internationally renowned experts. Including a foreword by Lorenz Cederbaum (University Heidelberg, Germany). This book focuses on current applications of molecular quantum dynamics. Examples from all main subjects in the field, presented by the internationally renowned experts, illustrate the importance of the domain. Recent success in helping to understand experimental observations in fields like heterogeneous catalysis, photochemistry, reactive scattering, optical spectroscopy, or femto- and attosecond chemistry and spectroscopy underline that nuclear quantum mechanical effects affect many areas of chemical and physical research. In contrast to standard quantum chemistry calculations, where the nuclei are treated classically, molecular quantum dynamics can cover quantum mechanical effects in their motion. Many examples, ranging from fundamental to applied problems, are known today that are impacted by nuclear quantum mechanical effects, including phenomena like tunneling, zero point energy effects, or non-adiabatic transitions. Being important to correctly understand many observations in chemical, organic and biological systems, or for the understanding of molecular spectroscopy, the range of applications covered in this book comprises broad areas of science: from astrophysics and the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, over elementary processes in chemistry, to biological processes (such as the first steps of photosynthesis or vision). Nevertheless, many researchers refrain from entering this domain. The book ''Molecular Quantum Dynamics'' offers them an accessible

  9. Parallelization of quantum molecular dynamics simulation code

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kato, Kaori; Kunugi, Tomoaki; Shibahara, Masahiko; Kotake, Susumu

    1998-02-01

    A quantum molecular dynamics simulation code has been developed for the analysis of the thermalization of photon energies in the molecule or materials in Kansai Research Establishment. The simulation code is parallelized for both Scalar massively parallel computer (Intel Paragon XP/S75) and Vector parallel computer (Fujitsu VPP300/12). Scalable speed-up has been obtained with a distribution to processor units by division of particle group in both parallel computers. As a result of distribution to processor units not only by particle group but also by the particles calculation that is constructed with fine calculations, highly parallelization performance is achieved in Intel Paragon XP/S75. (author)

  10. Excited-state molecular photoionization dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pratt, S.T.

    1995-01-01

    This review presents a survey of work using resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization and double-resonance techniques to study excited-state photoionization dynamics in molecules. These techniques routinely provide detail and precision that are difficult to achieve in single-photon ionization from the ground state. The review not only emphasizes new aspects of photoionization revealed in the excited-state experiments but also shows how the excited-state techniques can provide textbook illustrations of some fundamental mechanisms in molecular photoionization dynamics. Most of the examples are confined to diatomic molecules. (author)

  11. Symmetry of quantum molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Burenin, A.V.

    2002-01-01

    The paper reviews the current state-of-art in describing quantum molecular dynamics based on symmetry principles alone. This qualitative approach is of particular interest as the only method currently available for a broad and topical class of problems in the internal dynamics of molecules. Besides, a molecule is a physical system whose collective internal motions are geometrically structured, and its perturbation theory description requires a symmetry analysis of this structure. The nature of the geometrical symmetry groups crucial for the closed formulation of the qualitative approach is discussed [ru

  12. An Investigation of Molecular Docking and Molecular Dynamic Simulation on Imidazopyridines as B-Raf Kinase Inhibitors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huiding Xie

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available In the recent cancer treatment, B-Raf kinase is one of key targets. Nowadays, a group of imidazopyridines as B-Raf kinase inhibitors have been reported. In order to investigate the interaction between this group of inhibitors and B-Raf kinase, molecular docking, molecular dynamic (MD simulation and binding free energy (ΔGbind calculation were performed in this work. Molecular docking was carried out to identify the key residues in the binding site, and MD simulations were performed to determine the detail binding mode. The results obtained from MD simulation reveal that the binding site is stable during the MD simulations, and some hydrogen bonds (H-bonds in MD simulations are different from H-bonds in the docking mode. Based on the obtained MD trajectories, ΔGbind was computed by using Molecular Mechanics Generalized Born Surface Area (MM-GBSA, and the obtained energies are consistent with the activities. An energetic analysis reveals that both electrostatic and van der Waals contributions are important to ΔGbind, and the unfavorable polar solvation contribution results in the instability of the inhibitor with the lowest activity. These results are expected to understand the binding between B-Raf and imidazopyridines and provide some useful information to design potential B-Raf inhibitors.

  13. Molecular dynamics modeling of polymer flammability

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nyden, M.R.; Brown, J.E.; Lomakin, S.M.

    1992-01-01

    Molecular dynamic simulations were used to identify factors which promote char formation during the thermal degradation of polymers. Computer movies based on these simulations, indicate that cross-linked model polymers tend to undergo further cross-linking when burned, eventually forming a high molecular weight, thermally stable char. This paper reports that the prediction was confirmed by char yield measurements made on γ and e - -irradiated polyethylene and chemically cross-linked poly(methyl methacrylate)

  14. Structure and dynamics of a [1:1] drug-DNA complex: Analysis of 2D NMR data using molecular mechanics and molecular dynamics calculations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sarma, R.H.; Sarma, M.H.; Umemoto, K.

    1990-01-01

    1D/2D NMR studies are reported for a [1:1] complex of d(GA 4 T 4 C) 2 and Dst2 (an analogue of distamycin A). Full- Matrix NOESY Simulations, Molecular Mechanics and Molecular Dynamics Calculations are performed to analyze the NMR data. Results show that drug-DNA complex formation is driven by static features like H-bonding and steric interactions in the minor-groove of DNA. As a consequence of drug binding, a non-linear oscillatory mode is activated. In this mode the molecule samples equilibrium structural states of difference degrees of bending. It is noted that these structures belong to three distinctly different energy wells that satisfy the same NMR data. 14 refs., 4 figs., 2 tabs

  15. Probing molecular interactions in bone biomaterials: Through molecular dynamics and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bhowmik, Rahul; Katti, Kalpana S.; Verma, Devendra; Katti, Dinesh R.

    2007-01-01

    Polymer-hydroxyapatite (HAP) composites are widely investigated for their potential use as bone replacement materials. The molecular interactions at mineral polymer interface are known to have significant role of mechanical response of the composite system. Modeling interactions between such dissimilar molecules using molecular dynamics (MD) is an area of current interest. Molecular dynamics studies require potential function or force field parameters. Some force fields are described in literature that represents the structure of hydroxyapatite reasonably well. Yet, the applicability of these force fields for studying the interaction between dissimilar materials (such as mineral and polymer) is limited, as there is no accurate representation of polymer in these force fields. We have obtained the parameters of consistent valence force field (CVFF) for monoclinic hydroxyapatite. Validation of parameters was done by comparing the computationally obtained unit cell parameters, vibrational spectra and atomic distances with XRD and FTIR experiments. Using the obtained parameters of HAP, and available parameters of polymer (polyacrylic acid), interaction study was performed with MD simulations. The MD simulations showed that several hydrogen bonds may form between HAP and polyacrylic acid depending upon the exposed surface of HAP. Also there are some favourable planes of HAP where polyacrylic acid is most likely to attach. We have also simulated the mineralization of HAP using a 'synthetic biomineralization'. These modeling studies are supported by photoacoustic spectroscopy experiments on both porous and non porous composite samples for potential joint replacement and bone tissue engineering applications

  16. Electron-nuclear dynamics of molecular systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Diz, A.; Oehrn, Y.

    1994-01-01

    The content of an ab initio time-dependent theory of quantum molecular dynamics of electrons and atomic nuclei is presented. Employing the time-dependent variational principle and a family of approximate state vectors yields a set of dynamical equations approximating the time-dependent Schroedinger equation. These equations govern the time evolution of the relevant state vector parameters as molecular orbital coefficients, nuclear positions, and momenta. This approach does not impose the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, does not use potential energy surfaces, and takes into account electron-nuclear coupling. Basic conservation laws are fully obeyed. The simplest model of the theory employs a single determinantal state for the electrons and classical nuclei and is implemented in the computer code ENDyne. Results from this ab-initio theory are reported for ion-atom and ion-molecule collisions

  17. Insights into structural and dynamical features of water at halloysite interfaces probed by DFT and classical molecular dynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Presti, Davide; Pedone, Alfonso; Mancini, Giordano; Duce, Celia; Tiné, Maria Rosaria; Barone, Vincenzo

    2016-01-21

    Density functional theory calculations and classical molecular dynamics simulations have been used to investigate the structure and dynamics of water molecules on kaolinite surfaces and confined in the interlayer of a halloysite model of nanometric dimension. The first technique allowed us to accurately describe the structure of the tetrahedral-octahedral slab of kaolinite in vacuum and in interaction with water molecules and to assess the performance of two widely employed empirical force fields to model water/clay interfaces. Classical molecular dynamics simulations were used to study the hydrogen bond network structure and dynamics of water adsorbed on kaolinite surfaces and confined in the halloysite interlayer. The results are in nice agreement with the few experimental data available in the literature, showing a pronounced ordering and reduced mobility of water molecules at the hydrophilic octahedral surfaces of kaolinite and confined in the halloysite interlayer, with respect to water interacting with the hydrophobic tetrahedral surfaces and in the bulk. Finally, this investigation provides new atomistic insights into the structural and dynamical properties of water-clay interfaces, which are of fundamental importance for both natural processes and industrial applications.

  18. Efficient molecular dynamics simulations with many-body potentials on graphics processing units

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan, Zheyong; Chen, Wei; Vierimaa, Ville; Harju, Ari

    2017-09-01

    Graphics processing units have been extensively used to accelerate classical molecular dynamics simulations. However, there is much less progress on the acceleration of force evaluations for many-body potentials compared to pairwise ones. In the conventional force evaluation algorithm for many-body potentials, the force, virial stress, and heat current for a given atom are accumulated within different loops, which could result in write conflict between different threads in a CUDA kernel. In this work, we provide a new force evaluation algorithm, which is based on an explicit pairwise force expression for many-body potentials derived recently (Fan et al., 2015). In our algorithm, the force, virial stress, and heat current for a given atom can be accumulated within a single thread and is free of write conflicts. We discuss the formulations and algorithms and evaluate their performance. A new open-source code, GPUMD, is developed based on the proposed formulations. For the Tersoff many-body potential, the double precision performance of GPUMD using a Tesla K40 card is equivalent to that of the LAMMPS (Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator) molecular dynamics code running with about 100 CPU cores (Intel Xeon CPU X5670 @ 2.93 GHz).

  19. Thermostating extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martínez, Enrique; Cawkwell, Marc J; Voter, Arthur F; Niklasson, Anders M N

    2015-04-21

    Extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics is developed and analyzed for applications in canonical (NVT) simulations. Three different approaches are considered: the Nosé and Andersen thermostats and Langevin dynamics. We have tested the temperature distribution under different conditions of self-consistent field (SCF) convergence and time step and compared the results to analytical predictions. We find that the simulations based on the extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer framework provide accurate canonical distributions even under approximate SCF convergence, often requiring only a single diagonalization per time step, whereas regular Born-Oppenheimer formulations exhibit unphysical fluctuations unless a sufficiently high degree of convergence is reached at each time step. The thermostated extended Lagrangian framework thus offers an accurate approach to sample processes in the canonical ensemble at a fraction of the computational cost of regular Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations.

  20. Dynamics of molecular superrotors in an external magnetic field

    Science.gov (United States)

    Korobenko, Aleksey; Milner, Valery

    2015-08-01

    We excite diatomic oxygen and nitrogen to high rotational states with an optical centrifuge and study their dynamics in an external magnetic field. Ion imaging is employed to directly visualize, and follow in time, the rotation plane of the molecular superrotors. The two different mechanisms of interaction between the magnetic field and the molecular angular momentum in paramagnetic oxygen and non-magnetic nitrogen lead to qualitatively different behaviour. In nitrogen, we observe the precession of the molecular angular momentum around the field vector. In oxygen, strong spin-rotation coupling results in faster and richer dynamics, encompassing the splitting of the rotation plane into three separate components. As the centrifuged molecules evolve with no significant dispersion of the molecular wave function, the observed magnetic interaction presents an efficient mechanism for controlling the plane of molecular rotation.

  1. Protocol for classical molecular dynamics simulations of nano-junctions in solution

    KAUST Repository

    Gkionis, Konstantinos; Rungger, Ivan; Sanvito, Stefano; Schwingenschlö gl, Udo

    2012-01-01

    Modeling of nanoscale electronic devices in water requires the evaluation of the transport properties averaged over the possible configurations of the solvent. They can be obtained from classical molecular dynamics for water confined in the device. A series of classical molecular dynamics simulations is performed to establish a methodology for estimating the average number of water molecules N confined between two static and semi-infinite goldelectrodes. Variations in key parameters of the simulations, as well as simulations with non-static infinite goldsurfaces of constant area and with anisotropically fluctuating cell dimensions lead to less than 1% discrepancies in the calculated N. Our approach is then applied to a carbon nanotube placed between the goldelectrodes. The atomic density profile along the axis separating the slabs shows the typical pattern of confined liquids, irrespective of the presence of the nanotube, while parallel to the slabs the nanotube perturbs the obtained profile.

  2. Protocol for classical molecular dynamics simulations of nano-junctions in solution

    KAUST Repository

    Gkionis, Konstantinos

    2012-10-19

    Modeling of nanoscale electronic devices in water requires the evaluation of the transport properties averaged over the possible configurations of the solvent. They can be obtained from classical molecular dynamics for water confined in the device. A series of classical molecular dynamics simulations is performed to establish a methodology for estimating the average number of water molecules N confined between two static and semi-infinite goldelectrodes. Variations in key parameters of the simulations, as well as simulations with non-static infinite goldsurfaces of constant area and with anisotropically fluctuating cell dimensions lead to less than 1% discrepancies in the calculated N. Our approach is then applied to a carbon nanotube placed between the goldelectrodes. The atomic density profile along the axis separating the slabs shows the typical pattern of confined liquids, irrespective of the presence of the nanotube, while parallel to the slabs the nanotube perturbs the obtained profile.

  3. Femtochemistry and femtobiology ultrafast dynamics in molecular science

    CERN Document Server

    Douhal, Abderrazzak

    2002-01-01

    This book contains important contributions from top international scientists on the-state-of-the-art of femtochemistry and femtobiology at the beginning of the new millennium. It consists of reviews and papers on ultrafast dynamics in molecular science.The coverage of topics highlights several important features of molecular science from the viewpoint of structure (space domain) and dynamics (time domain). First of all, the book presents the latest developments, such as experimental techniques for understanding ultrafast processes in gas, condensed and complex systems, including biological mol

  4. Molecular-dynamic simulations of the thermophysical properties of hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane single crystal at high pressures and temperatures

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kozlova, S. A.; Gubin, S. A.; Maklashova, I. V.; Selezenev, A. A.

    2017-11-01

    Molecular dynamic simulations of isothermal compression parameters are performed for a hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane single crystal (C6H6O12N12) using a modified ReaxFF-log reactive force field. It is shown that the pressure-compression ratio curve for a single C6H6O12N12 crystal at constant temperature T = 300 K in pressure range P = 0.05-40 GPa is in satisfactory agreement with experimental compression isotherms obtained for a single C6H6O12N12 crystal. Hugoniot molecular-dynamic simulations of the shock-wave hydrostatic compression of a single C6H6O12N12 crystal are performed. Along with Hugoniot temperature-pressure curves, calculated shock-wave pressure-compression ratios for a single C6H6O12N12 crystal are obtained for a wide pressure range of P = 1-40 GPa. It is established that the percussive adiabat obtained for a single C6H6O12N12 crystal is in a good agreement with the experimental data. All calculations are performed using a LAMMPS molecular dynamics simulation software package that provides a ReaxFF-lg reactive force field to support the approach.

  5. Molecular dynamics simulation of ribosome jam

    KAUST Repository

    Matsumoto, Shigenori; Takagi, Fumiko; Shimada, Takashi; Ito, Nobuyasu

    2011-01-01

    We propose a coarse-grained molecular dynamics model of ribosome molecules to study the dependence of translation process on environmental parameters. We found the model exhibits traffic jam property, which is consistent with an ASEP model. We

  6. Cosurfactants lower surface tension of the diglyceride/water interface : A molecular dynamics study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    vanBuuren, AR; Tieleman, DP; deVlieg, J; Berendsen, HJC

    1996-01-01

    We performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of bulk 1,2-dilauroyl-sn-glycerol (DLG) systems in contact with a water layer. In the DLG oil phase cosurfactants were placed with increasing concentration: 1-monolauroyl-sn-glycerol (1MG), 2-monolauroylglycerol (2MG), and dodecanoic acid (FA, fatty

  7. Chemical reactivity and spectroscopy explored from QM/MM molecular dynamics simulations using the LIO code

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marcolongo, Juan P.; Zeida, Ari; Semelak, Jonathan A.; Foglia, Nicolás O.; Morzan, Uriel N.; Estrin, Dario A.; González Lebrero, Mariano C.; Scherlis, Damián A.

    2018-03-01

    In this work we present the current advances in the development and the applications of LIO, a lab-made code designed for density functional theory calculations in graphical processing units (GPU), that can be coupled with different classical molecular dynamics engines. This code has been thoroughly optimized to perform efficient molecular dynamics simulations at the QM/MM DFT level, allowing for an exhaustive sampling of the configurational space. Selected examples are presented for the description of chemical reactivity in terms of free energy profiles, and also for the computation of optical properties, such as vibrational and electronic spectra in solvent and protein environments.

  8. Quantum molecular dynamics simulations of thermophysical properties of fluid ethane

    OpenAIRE

    Zhang, Yujuan; Wang, Cong; Zheng, Fawei; Zhang, Ping

    2012-01-01

    We have performed first-principles molecular-dynamics simulations based on density-functional theory to study the thermophysical properties of ethane under extreme conditions. We present new results for the equation of state of fluid ethane in the warm dense region. The optical conductivity is calculated via the Kubo-Greenwood formula from which the dc conductivity and optical reflectivity are derived. The close correlation between the nonmetal-metal transition of ethane and its decomposition...

  9. Dynamics of molecular superrotors in an external magnetic field

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Korobenko, Aleksey; Milner, Valery

    2015-01-01

    We excite diatomic oxygen and nitrogen to high rotational states with an optical centrifuge and study their dynamics in an external magnetic field. Ion imaging is employed to directly visualize, and follow in time, the rotation plane of the molecular superrotors. The two different mechanisms of interaction between the magnetic field and the molecular angular momentum in paramagnetic oxygen and non-magnetic nitrogen lead to qualitatively different behaviour. In nitrogen, we observe the precession of the molecular angular momentum around the field vector. In oxygen, strong spin–rotation coupling results in faster and richer dynamics, encompassing the splitting of the rotation plane into three separate components. As the centrifuged molecules evolve with no significant dispersion of the molecular wave function, the observed magnetic interaction presents an efficient mechanism for controlling the plane of molecular rotation. (paper)

  10. The Development and Comparison of Molecular Dynamics Simulation and Monte Carlo Simulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Jundong

    2018-03-01

    Molecular dynamics is an integrated technology that combines physics, mathematics and chemistry. Molecular dynamics method is a computer simulation experimental method, which is a powerful tool for studying condensed matter system. This technique not only can get the trajectory of the atom, but can also observe the microscopic details of the atomic motion. By studying the numerical integration algorithm in molecular dynamics simulation, we can not only analyze the microstructure, the motion of particles and the image of macroscopic relationship between them and the material, but can also study the relationship between the interaction and the macroscopic properties more conveniently. The Monte Carlo Simulation, similar to the molecular dynamics, is a tool for studying the micro-molecular and particle nature. In this paper, the theoretical background of computer numerical simulation is introduced, and the specific methods of numerical integration are summarized, including Verlet method, Leap-frog method and Velocity Verlet method. At the same time, the method and principle of Monte Carlo Simulation are introduced. Finally, similarities and differences of Monte Carlo Simulation and the molecular dynamics simulation are discussed.

  11. Kinetics from Replica Exchange Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stelzl, Lukas S; Hummer, Gerhard

    2017-08-08

    Transitions between metastable states govern many fundamental processes in physics, chemistry and biology, from nucleation events in phase transitions to the folding of proteins. The free energy surfaces underlying these processes can be obtained from simulations using enhanced sampling methods. However, their altered dynamics makes kinetic and mechanistic information difficult or impossible to extract. Here, we show that, with replica exchange molecular dynamics (REMD), one can not only sample equilibrium properties but also extract kinetic information. For systems that strictly obey first-order kinetics, the procedure to extract rates is rigorous. For actual molecular systems whose long-time dynamics are captured by kinetic rate models, accurate rate coefficients can be determined from the statistics of the transitions between the metastable states at each replica temperature. We demonstrate the practical applicability of the procedure by constructing master equation (Markov state) models of peptide and RNA folding from REMD simulations.

  12. Integrating atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, experiments, and network analysis to study protein dynamics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Papaleo, Elena

    2015-01-01

    that we observe and the functional properties of these important cellular machines. To make progresses in this direction, we need to improve the physical models used to describe proteins and solvent in molecular dynamics, as well as to strengthen the integration of experiments and simulations to overcome...... with the possibility to validate simulation methods and physical models against a broad range of experimental observables. On the other side, it also allows a complementary and comprehensive view on protein structure and dynamics. What is needed now is a better understanding of the link between the dynamic properties...... simulations with attention to the effects that can be propagated over long distances and are often associated to important biological functions. In this context, approaches inspired by network analysis can make an important contribution to the analysis of molecular dynamics simulations....

  13. Molecular dynamic simulation study of molten cesium

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yeganegi Saeid

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to study thermodynamics and structural properties of expanded caesium fluid. Internal pressure, radial distribution functions (RDFs, coordination numbers and diffusion coefficients have been calculated at temperature range 700–1600 K and pressure range 100–800 bar. We used the internal pressure to predict the metal–non-metal transition occurrence region. RDFs were calculated at wide ranges of temperature and pressure. The coordination numbers decrease and positions of the first peak of RDFs slightly increase as the temperature increases and pressure decreases. The calculated self-diffusion coefficients at various temperatures and pressures show no distinct boundary between Cs metallic fluid and its expanded fluid where it continuously increases with temperature.

  14. Statistical properties of anti-symmetrized molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ohnishi, A.; Randrup, J.

    1993-01-01

    We study the statistical equilibrium properties of the recently developed anti-symmetrized molecular dynamics model for heavy-ion reactions. We consider A non-interacting fermions in one dimension, either bound in a common harmonic potential or moving freely within an interval, and perform a Metropolis sampling of the corresponding parameter space. Generally the average excitation and the specific heat, considered as functions of the imposed temperature, behave in a classical manner when the canonical weight is calculated in the mean-field approximation. However, it is possible to obtain results that are much closer to the quantal behavior by modifying the weight to take approximate account of the energy fluctuations within the individual wave packets. (orig.)

  15. Molecular dynamics simulations of RNA motifs

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Csaszar, K.; Špačková, Naďa; Šponer, Jiří; Leontis, N. B.

    2002-01-01

    Roč. 223, - (2002), s. 154 ISSN 0065-7727. [Annual Meeting of the American Chemistry Society /223./. 07.04.2002-11.04.2002, Orlando ] Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z5004920 Keywords : molecular dynamics * RNA * hydration Subject RIV: BO - Biophysics

  16. Monte Carlo-molecular dynamics simulations for two-dimensional magnets

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kawabata, C.; takeuchi, M.; Bishop, A.R.

    1985-01-01

    A combined Monte Carlo-molecular dynamics simulation technique is used to study the dynamic structure factor on a square lattice for isotropic Heisenberg and planar classical ferromagnetic spin Hamiltonians

  17. Molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo calculations in statistical mechanics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wood, W.W.; Erpenbeck, J.J.

    1976-01-01

    Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics calculations on statistical mechanical systems is reviewed giving some of the more significant recent developments. It is noted that the term molecular dynamics refers to the time-averaging technique for hard-core and square-well interactions and for continuous force-law interactions. Ergodic questions, methodology, quantum mechanical, Lorentz, and one-dimensional, hard-core, and square and triangular-well systems, short-range soft potentials, and other systems are included. 268 references

  18. Charge Carrier Dynamics at Silver Nanocluster-Molecular Acceptor Interfaces

    KAUST Repository

    Almansaf, Abdulkhaleq

    2017-07-01

    A fundamental understanding of interfacial charge transfer at donor-acceptor interfaces is very crucial as it is considered among the most important dynamical processes for optimizing performance in many light harvesting systems, including photovoltaics and photo-catalysis. In general, the photo-generated singlet excitons in photoactive materials exhibit very short lifetimes because of their dipole-allowed spin radiative decay and short diffusion lengths. In contrast, the radiative decay of triplet excitons is dipole forbidden; therefore, their lifetimes are considerably longer. The discussion in this thesis primarily focuses on the relevant parameters that are involved in charge separation (CS), charge transfer (CT), intersystem crossing (ISC) rate, triplet state lifetime, and carrier recombination (CR) at silver nanocluster (NCs) molecular-acceptors interfaces. A combination of steady-state and femto- and nanosecond broadband transient absorption spectroscopies were used to investigate the charge carrier dynamics in various donor-acceptor systems. Additionally, this thesis was prolonged to investigate some important factors that influence the charge carrier dynamics in Ag29 silver NCs donor-acceptor systems, such as the metal doping and chemical structure of the nanocluster and molecular acceptors. Interestingly, clear correlations between the steady-state measurements and timeresolved spectroscopy results are found. In the first study, we have investigated the interfacial charge transfer dynamics in positively charged meso units of 5, 10, 15, 20-tetra (1- methyl-4-pyridino)-porphyrin tetra (p-toluene sulfonate) (TMPyP) and neutral charged 5, 10, 15, 20-tetra (4-pyridyl)-porphyrin (TPyP), with negatively charged undoped and gold (Au)- doped silver Ag29 NCs. Moreover, this study showed the impact of Au doping on the charge carrier dynamics of the system. In the second study, we have investigated the interfacial charge transfer dynamics in [Pt2 Ag23 Cl7 (PPh3

  19. Molecular dynamics simulations of the adsorption of DNA segments onto graphene oxide

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chen, Junlang; Chen, Shude; Chen, Liang; Wang, Yu

    2014-01-01

    Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to investigate the dynamic process of DNA segments’ adsorption on graphene oxide (GO) in aqueous solution. We find that DNA segments finally ‘stand on’ GO’s surface. Due to energy penalty and electrostatic repulsion, DNA segments cannot lie on the surface of GO with their helical axes parallel to GO’s surface. Both π–π stacking and electrostatic interactions contribute to their binding affinity between the contacting basepair and GO. The results are of great importance to understand the interactions between DNA segments and GO. (paper)

  20. Structural flexibility of the sulfur mustard molecule at finite temperature from Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lach, Joanna; Goclon, Jakub; Rodziewicz, Pawel

    2016-04-05

    Sulfur mustard (SM) is one of the most dangerous chemical compounds used against humans, mostly at war conditions but also in terrorist attacks. Even though the sulfur mustard has been synthesized over a hundred years ago, some of its molecular properties are not yet resolved. We investigate the structural flexibility of the SM molecule in the gas phase by Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics simulations. Thorough conformation analysis of 81 different SM configurations using density functional theory is performed to analyze the behavior of the system at finite temperature. The conformational diversity is analyzed with respect to the formation of intramolecular blue-shifting CH⋯S and CH⋯Cl hydrogen bonds. Molecular dynamics simulations indicate that all structural rearrangements between SM local minima are realized either in direct or non-direct way, including the intermediate structure in the last case. We study the lifetime of the SM conformers and perform the population analysis. Additionally, we provide the anharmonic dynamical finite temperature IR spectrum from the Fourier Transform of the dipole moment autocorrelation function to mimic the missing experimental IR spectrum. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Liquid Phosphorus at High Temperature and Pressure

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wu Yanning; Zhao Gang; Liu Changsong; Zhu Zhengang

    2008-01-01

    By performing ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, we have investigated the microstructure, dynamical and electronic properties of liquid phosphorus (P) under high temperature and pressure. In our simulations, the calculated coordination number (CN) changes discontinuously with density, and seems to increase rapidly after liquid P is compressed to 2.5 g/cm 3 . Under compression, liquid P shows the first-order liquid-liquid phase transition from the molecular liquid composed of the tetrahedral P 4 molecules to complex polymeric form with three-dimensional network structure, accompanied by the nonmetal to metal transition of the electronic structure. The order parameters Q 6 and Q 4 are sensitive to the microstructural change of liquid P. By calculating diffusion coefficients, we show the dynamical anomaly of liquid P by compression. At lower temperatures, a maximum exists at the diffusion coefficients as a function of density; at higher temperatures, the anomalous behavior is weakened. The excess entropy shows the same phenomena as the diffusion coefficients. By analysis of the angle distribution functions and angular limited triplet correlation functions, we can clearly find that the Peierls distortion in polymeric form of liquid P is reduced by further compression

  2. Molecular Dynamics Simulation for the Mechanical Properties of CNT/Polymer Nanocomposites

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yang, Seung Hwa; Cho, Maeg Hyo

    2007-01-01

    In order to obtain mechanical properties of CNT/Polymer nano-composites, molecular dynamics simulation is performed. Overall system was modeled as a flexible unit cell in which carbon nanotubes are embedded into a polyethylene matrix for N σ T ensemble simulation. COMPASS force field was chosen to describe inter and intra molecular potential and bulk effect was achieved via periodic boundary conditions. In CNT-polymer interface, only Lennard-Jones non-bond potential was considered. Using Parrinello-Rahman fluctuation method, mechanical properties of orthotropic nano-composites under various temperatures were successfully obtained. Also, we investigated thermal behavior of the short CNT reinforced nanocomposites system with predicting glass transition temperature

  3. Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Poly(dimethylsiloxane) Properties

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Fojtíková, J.; Kalvoda, L.; Sedlák, Petr

    2015-01-01

    Roč. 128, č. 4 (2015), s. 637-639 ISSN 0587-4246 R&D Projects: GA ČR GB14-36566G Institutional support: RVO:61388998 Keywords : molecular dynamics * poly(dimethylsiloxane) * dissipative particle dynamics Subject RIV: BM - Solid Matter Physics ; Magnetism Impact factor: 0.525, year: 2015 http://przyrbwn.icm.edu.pl/APP/PDF/128/a128z4p40.pdf

  4. Nanotribology investigations with classical molecular dynamics

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Solhjoo, Soheil

    2017-01-01

    This thesis presents a number of nanotribological problems investigated by means of classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, within the context of the applicability of continuum mechanics contact theories at the atomic scale. Along these lines, three different themes can be recognized herein:

  5. Validating clustering of molecular dynamics simulations using polymer models

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Phillips Joshua L

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Molecular dynamics (MD simulation is a powerful technique for sampling the meta-stable and transitional conformations of proteins and other biomolecules. Computational data clustering has emerged as a useful, automated technique for extracting conformational states from MD simulation data. Despite extensive application, relatively little work has been done to determine if the clustering algorithms are actually extracting useful information. A primary goal of this paper therefore is to provide such an understanding through a detailed analysis of data clustering applied to a series of increasingly complex biopolymer models. Results We develop a novel series of models using basic polymer theory that have intuitive, clearly-defined dynamics and exhibit the essential properties that we are seeking to identify in MD simulations of real biomolecules. We then apply spectral clustering, an algorithm particularly well-suited for clustering polymer structures, to our models and MD simulations of several intrinsically disordered proteins. Clustering results for the polymer models provide clear evidence that the meta-stable and transitional conformations are detected by the algorithm. The results for the polymer models also help guide the analysis of the disordered protein simulations by comparing and contrasting the statistical properties of the extracted clusters. Conclusions We have developed a framework for validating the performance and utility of clustering algorithms for studying molecular biopolymer simulations that utilizes several analytic and dynamic polymer models which exhibit well-behaved dynamics including: meta-stable states, transition states, helical structures, and stochastic dynamics. We show that spectral clustering is robust to anomalies introduced by structural alignment and that different structural classes of intrinsically disordered proteins can be reliably discriminated from the clustering results. To our

  6. Vectorization for Molecular Dynamics on Intel Xeon Phi Corpocessors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yi, Hongsuk

    2014-03-01

    Many modern processors are capable of exploiting data-level parallelism through the use of single instruction multiple data (SIMD) execution. The new Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor supports 512 bit vector registers for the high performance computing. In this paper, we have developed a hierarchical parallelization scheme for accelerated molecular dynamics simulations with the Terfoff potentials for covalent bond solid crystals on Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor systems. The scheme exploits multi-level parallelism computing. We combine thread-level parallelism using a tightly coupled thread-level and task-level parallelism with 512-bit vector register. The simulation results show that the parallel performance of SIMD implementations on Xeon Phi is apparently superior to their x86 CPU architecture.

  7. Young's moduli of carbon materials investigated by various classical molecular dynamics schemes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gayk, Florian; Ehrens, Julian; Heitmann, Tjark; Vorndamme, Patrick; Mrugalla, Andreas; Schnack, Jürgen

    2018-05-01

    For many applications classical carbon potentials together with classical molecular dynamics are employed to calculate structures and physical properties of such carbon-based materials where quantum mechanical methods fail either due to the excessive size, irregular structure or long-time dynamics. Although such potentials, as for instance implemented in LAMMPS, yield reasonably accurate bond lengths and angles for several carbon materials such as graphene, it is not clear how accurate they are in terms of mechanical properties such as for instance Young's moduli. We performed large-scale classical molecular dynamics investigations of three carbon-based materials using the various potentials implemented in LAMMPS as well as the EDIP potential of Marks. We show how the Young's moduli vary with classical potentials and compare to experimental results. Since classical descriptions of carbon are bound to be approximations it is not astonishing that different realizations yield differing results. One should therefore carefully check for which observables a certain potential is suited. Our aim is to contribute to such a clarification.

  8. Gas-Phase Molecular Dynamics: Theoretical Studies in Spectroscopy and Chemical Dynamics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yu, H.G.; Muckerman, J.T.

    2010-06-01

    The goal of this program is the development and application of computational methods for studying chemical reaction dynamics and molecular spectroscopy in the gas phase. We are interested in developing rigorous quantum dynamics algorithms for small polyatomic systems and in implementing approximate approaches for complex ones. Particular focus is on the dynamics and kinetics of chemical reactions and on the rovibrational spectra of species involved in combustion processes. This research also explores the potential energy surfaces of these systems of interest using state-of-the-art quantum chemistry methods.

  9. Alternative Hamiltonian for molecular dynamics simulations in the grand canonical ensemble

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lo, C.; Palmer, B.

    1995-01-01

    An alternative to the Hamiltonian of Cagin and Pettitt for performing molecular dynamics simulations in the grand canonical ensemble is presented and used as the basis for a new algorithm. The algorithm is tested on the ideal gas and the truncated and shifted Lennard-Jones fluid. Simulations are used to calculate the vapor--liquid coexistence points for the Lennard-Jones system and are found to be in agreement with previous calculations using Gibbs ensemble calculations and with the Nicolas equation of state. Simulations are also performed on the Lennard-Jones solid

  10. Energy conserving, linear scaling Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cawkwell, M J; Niklasson, Anders M N

    2012-10-07

    Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations with long-term conservation of the total energy and a computational cost that scales linearly with system size have been obtained simultaneously. Linear scaling with a low pre-factor is achieved using density matrix purification with sparse matrix algebra and a numerical threshold on matrix elements. The extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics formalism [A. M. N. Niklasson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 123004 (2008)] yields microcanonical trajectories with the approximate forces obtained from the linear scaling method that exhibit no systematic drift over hundreds of picoseconds and which are indistinguishable from trajectories computed using exact forces.

  11. Chemical Reactivity and Spectroscopy Explored From QM/MM Molecular Dynamics Simulations Using the LIO Code

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Juan P. Marcolongo

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available In this work we present the current advances in the development and the applications of LIO, a lab-made code designed for density functional theory calculations in graphical processing units (GPU, that can be coupled with different classical molecular dynamics engines. This code has been thoroughly optimized to perform efficient molecular dynamics simulations at the QM/MM DFT level, allowing for an exhaustive sampling of the configurational space. Selected examples are presented for the description of chemical reactivity in terms of free energy profiles, and also for the computation of optical properties, such as vibrational and electronic spectra in solvent and protein environments.

  12. Classical molecular dynamics simulation of electronically non-adiabatic processes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, William H; Cotton, Stephen J

    2016-12-22

    Both classical and quantum mechanics (as well as hybrids thereof, i.e., semiclassical approaches) find widespread use in simulating dynamical processes in molecular systems. For large chemical systems, however, which involve potential energy surfaces (PES) of general/arbitrary form, it is usually the case that only classical molecular dynamics (MD) approaches are feasible, and their use is thus ubiquitous nowadays, at least for chemical processes involving dynamics on a single PES (i.e., within a single Born-Oppenheimer electronic state). This paper reviews recent developments in an approach which extends standard classical MD methods to the treatment of electronically non-adiabatic processes, i.e., those that involve transitions between different electronic states. The approach treats nuclear and electronic degrees of freedom (DOF) equivalently (i.e., by classical mechanics, thereby retaining the simplicity of standard MD), and provides "quantization" of the electronic states through a symmetrical quasi-classical (SQC) windowing model. The approach is seen to be capable of treating extreme regimes of strong and weak coupling between the electronic states, as well as accurately describing coherence effects in the electronic DOF (including the de-coherence of such effects caused by coupling to the nuclear DOF). A survey of recent applications is presented to illustrate the performance of the approach. Also described is a newly developed variation on the original SQC model (found universally superior to the original) and a general extension of the SQC model to obtain the full electronic density matrix (at no additional cost/complexity).

  13. Modeling ramp compression experiments using large-scale molecular dynamics simulation.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mattsson, Thomas Kjell Rene; Desjarlais, Michael Paul; Grest, Gary Stephen; Templeton, Jeremy Alan; Thompson, Aidan Patrick; Jones, Reese E.; Zimmerman, Jonathan A.; Baskes, Michael I. (University of California, San Diego); Winey, J. Michael (Washington State University); Gupta, Yogendra Mohan (Washington State University); Lane, J. Matthew D.; Ditmire, Todd (University of Texas at Austin); Quevedo, Hernan J. (University of Texas at Austin)

    2011-10-01

    Molecular dynamics simulation (MD) is an invaluable tool for studying problems sensitive to atomscale physics such as structural transitions, discontinuous interfaces, non-equilibrium dynamics, and elastic-plastic deformation. In order to apply this method to modeling of ramp-compression experiments, several challenges must be overcome: accuracy of interatomic potentials, length- and time-scales, and extraction of continuum quantities. We have completed a 3 year LDRD project with the goal of developing molecular dynamics simulation capabilities for modeling the response of materials to ramp compression. The techniques we have developed fall in to three categories (i) molecular dynamics methods (ii) interatomic potentials (iii) calculation of continuum variables. Highlights include the development of an accurate interatomic potential describing shock-melting of Beryllium, a scaling technique for modeling slow ramp compression experiments using fast ramp MD simulations, and a technique for extracting plastic strain from MD simulations. All of these methods have been implemented in Sandia's LAMMPS MD code, ensuring their widespread availability to dynamic materials research at Sandia and elsewhere.

  14. Extension of the AMBER molecular dynamics software to Intel's Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Needham, Perri J.; Bhuiyan, Ashraf; Walker, Ross C.

    2016-04-01

    We present an implementation of explicit solvent particle mesh Ewald (PME) classical molecular dynamics (MD) within the PMEMD molecular dynamics engine, that forms part of the AMBER v14 MD software package, that makes use of Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors by offloading portions of the PME direct summation and neighbor list build to the coprocessor. We refer to this implementation as pmemd MIC offload and in this paper present the technical details of the algorithm, including basic models for MPI and OpenMP configuration, and analyze the resultant performance. The algorithm provides the best performance improvement for large systems (>400,000 atoms), achieving a ∼35% performance improvement for satellite tobacco mosaic virus (1,067,095 atoms) when 2 Intel E5-2697 v2 processors (2 ×12 cores, 30M cache, 2.7 GHz) are coupled to an Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor (Model 7120P-1.238/1.333 GHz, 61 cores). The implementation utilizes a two-fold decomposition strategy: spatial decomposition using an MPI library and thread-based decomposition using OpenMP. We also present compiler optimization settings that improve the performance on Intel Xeon processors, while retaining simulation accuracy.

  15. A Coupling Tool for Parallel Molecular Dynamics-Continuum Simulations

    KAUST Repository

    Neumann, Philipp; Tchipev, Nikola

    2012-01-01

    We present a tool for coupling Molecular Dynamics and continuum solvers. It is written in C++ and is meant to support the developers of hybrid molecular - continuum simulations in terms of both realisation of the respective coupling algorithm

  16. Molecular Dynamics Study of Water Molecules in Interlayer of 14 ^|^Aring; Tobermorite

    KAUST Repository

    Yoon, Seyoon; Monteiro, Paulo J.M.

    2013-01-01

    The molecular structure and dynamics of interlayer water of 14 Å tobermorite are investigated based on molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Calculated structural parameters of the interlayer water configuration are in good agreement with current

  17. Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Kinetic Models for Chiral Dominance in Soft Condensed Matter

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Toxvaerd, Søren

    2001-01-01

    Molecular dynamics simulation, models for isomerization kinetics, origin of biomolecular chirality......Molecular dynamics simulation, models for isomerization kinetics, origin of biomolecular chirality...

  18. molecular dynamics simulations and quantum chemical calculations

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    ABSTRACT. The molecular dynamic (MD) simulation and quantum chemical calculations for the adsorption of [2-(2-Henicos-10- .... electronic properties of molecule clusters, surfaces and ... The local reactivity was analyzed by determining the.

  19. Invariant molecular-dynamics approach to structural phase transitions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wentzcovitch, R.M.

    1991-01-01

    Two fictitious Lagrangians to be used in molecular-dynamics simulations with variable cell shape and suitable to study problems like structural phase transitions are introduced. Because they are invariant with respect to the choice of the simulation cell edges and eliminate symmetry breaking associated with the fictitious part of the dynamics, they improve the physical content of numerical simulations that up to now have been done by using Parrinello-Rahman dynamics

  20. Molecular-dynamics simulation of crystalline 18-crown-6: thermal shortening of covalent bonds

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Eerden, J.; Harkema, Sybolt; Feil, D.

    1990-01-01

    Molecular-dynamics simulations of crystalline 18-crown-6 have been performed in a study of the apparent thermal shortening of covalent bonds observed in crystal structures. At 100 K, a shortening of 0.006 _+ 0.001 A for C----C and C----O bonds was obtained. This result was found to be independent of

  1. Extended Lagrangian Density Functional Tight-Binding Molecular Dynamics for Molecules and Solids

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aradi, Balint; Frauenheim, Thomas

    2015-01-01

    A computationally fast quantum mechanical molecular dynamics scheme using an extended Lagrangian density functional tight-binding formulation has been developed and implemented in the DFTB+ electronic structure program package for simulations of solids and molecular systems. The scheme combines the computational speed of self-consistent density functional tight-binding theory with the efficiency and long-term accuracy of extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics. Furthermore, for systems without self-consistent charge instabilities, only a single diagonalization or construction of the single-particle density matrix is required in each time step. The molecular dynamics simulation scheme can also be applied to a broad range of problems in materials science, chemistry, and biology

  2. Extended Lagrangian Density Functional Tight-Binding Molecular Dynamics for Molecules and Solids.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aradi, Bálint; Niklasson, Anders M N; Frauenheim, Thomas

    2015-07-14

    A computationally fast quantum mechanical molecular dynamics scheme using an extended Lagrangian density functional tight-binding formulation has been developed and implemented in the DFTB+ electronic structure program package for simulations of solids and molecular systems. The scheme combines the computational speed of self-consistent density functional tight-binding theory with the efficiency and long-term accuracy of extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics. For systems without self-consistent charge instabilities, only a single diagonalization or construction of the single-particle density matrix is required in each time step. The molecular dynamics simulation scheme can be applied to a broad range of problems in materials science, chemistry, and biology.

  3. NMR investigations of molecular dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palmer, Arthur

    2011-03-01

    NMR spectroscopy is a powerful experimental approach for characterizing protein conformational dynamics on multiple time scales. The insights obtained from NMR studies are complemented and by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, which provide full atomistic details of protein dynamics. Homologous mesophilic (E. coli) and thermophilic (T. thermophilus) ribonuclease H (RNase H) enzymes serve to illustrate how changes in protein sequence and structure that affect conformational dynamic processes can be monitored and characterized by joint analysis of NMR spectroscopy and MD simulations. A Gly residue inserted within a putative hinge between helices B and C is conserved among thermophilic RNases H, but absent in mesophilic RNases H. Experimental spin relaxation measurements show that the dynamic properties of T. thermophilus RNase H are recapitulated in E. coli RNase H by insertion of a Gly residue between helices B and C. Additional specific intramolecular interactions that modulate backbone and sidechain dynamical properties of the Gly-rich loop and of the conserved Trp residue flanking the Gly insertion site have been identified using MD simulations and subsequently confirmed by NMR spin relaxation measurements. These results emphasize the importance of hydrogen bonds and local steric interactions in restricting conformational fluctuations, and the absence of such interactions in allowing conformational adaptation to substrate binding.

  4. Kernel optimization for short-range molecular dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Changjun; Wang, Xianmeng; Li, Jianjiang; He, Xinfu; Li, Shigang; Feng, Yangde; Yang, Shaofeng; Bai, He

    2017-02-01

    To optimize short-range force computations in Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations, multi-threading and SIMD optimizations are presented in this paper. With respect to multi-threading optimization, a Partition-and-Separate-Calculation (PSC) method is designed to avoid write conflicts caused by using Newton's third law. Serial bottlenecks are eliminated with no additional memory usage. The method is implemented by using the OpenMP model. Furthermore, the PSC method is employed on Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors in both native and offload models. We also evaluate the performance of the PSC method under different thread affinities on the MIC architecture. In the SIMD execution, we explain the performance influence in the PSC method, considering the "if-clause" of the cutoff radius check. The experiment results show that our PSC method is relatively more efficient compared to some traditional methods. In double precision, our 256-bit SIMD implementation is about 3 times faster than the scalar version.

  5. Understanding water: Molecular dynamics simulations of solubilized and crystallized myoglobin

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wei Gu; Garcia, A.E.; Schoenborn, B.P. [Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM (United States)

    1994-12-31

    Molecular dynamics simulations were performed on CO myoglobin to evaluate the stability of the bound water molecules as determined in a neutron diffraction analysis. The myoglobin structure derived from the neutron analysis provided the starting coordinate set used in the simulations. The simulations show that only a few water molecules are tightly bound to protein atoms, while most solvent molecules are labile, breaking and reforming hydrogen bonds. Comparison between myoglobin in solution and in a single crystal highlighted some of the packing effects on the solvent structure and shows that water solvent plays an indispensable role in protein dynamics and structural stability. The described observations explain some of the differences in the experimental results of protein hydration as observed in NMR, neutron and X-ray diffraction studies.

  6. Understanding water: Molecular dynamics simulations of solubilized and crystallized myoglobin

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wei Gu; Garcia, A.E.; Schoenborn, B.P.

    1994-01-01

    Molecular dynamics simulations were performed on CO myoglobin to evaluate the stability of the bound water molecules as determined in a neutron diffraction analysis. The myoglobin structure derived from the neutron analysis provided the starting coordinate set used in the simulations. The simulations show that only a few water molecules are tightly bound to protein atoms, while most solvent molecules are labile, breaking and reforming hydrogen bonds. Comparison between myoglobin in solution and in a single crystal highlighted some of the packing effects on the solvent structure and shows that water solvent plays an indispensable role in protein dynamics and structural stability. The described observations explain some of the differences in the experimental results of protein hydration as observed in NMR, neutron and X-ray diffraction studies

  7. Molecular Dynamics Simulations for Resolving Scaling Laws of Polyethylene Melts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kazuaki Z. Takahashi

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Long-timescale molecular dynamics simulations were performed to estimate the actual physical nature of a united-atom model of polyethylene (PE. Several scaling laws for representative polymer properties are compared to theoretical predictions. Internal structure results indicate a clear departure from theoretical predictions that assume ideal chain statics. Chain motion deviates from predictions that assume ideal motion of short chains. With regard to linear viscoelasticity, the presence or absence of entanglements strongly affects the duration of the theoretical behavior. Overall, the results indicate that Gaussian statics and dynamics are not necessarily established for real atomistic models of PE. Moreover, the actual physical nature should be carefully considered when using atomistic models for applications that expect typical polymer behaviors.

  8. Excitation dynamics and relaxation in a molecular heterodimer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Balevičius, V.; Gelzinis, A.; Abramavicius, D.; Mančal, T.; Valkunas, L.

    2012-01-01

    Highlights: ► Dynamics of excitation within a heterogenous molecular dimer. ► Excited states can be swapped due to different reorganization energies of monomers. ► Conventional excitonic basis becomes renormalized due to interaction with the bath. ► Relaxation is independent of mutual positioning of monomeric excited states. -- Abstract: The exciton dynamics in a molecular heterodimer is studied as a function of differences in excitation and reorganization energies, asymmetry in transition dipole moments and excited state lifetimes. The heterodimer is composed of two molecules modeled as two-level systems coupled by the resonance interaction. The system-bath coupling is taken into account as a modulating factor of the molecular excitation energy gap, while the relaxation to the ground state is treated phenomenologically. Comparison of the description of the excitation dynamics modeled using either the Redfield equations (secular and full forms) or the Hierarchical quantum master equation (HQME) is demonstrated and discussed. Possible role of the dimer as an excitation quenching center in photosynthesis self-regulation is discussed. It is concluded that the system-bath interaction rather than the excitonic effect determines the excitation quenching ability of such a dimer.

  9. The nonequilibrium molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hoover, W.G.

    1992-03-01

    MOLECULAR DYNAMICS has been generalized in order to simulate a variety of NONEQUILIBRIUM systems. This generalization has been achieved by adopting microscopic mechanical definitions of macroscopic thermodynamic and hydrodynamic variables, such as temperature and stress. Some of the problems already treated include rapid plastic deformation, intense heat conduction, strong shockwaves simulation, and far-from-equilibrium phase transformations. Continuing advances in technique and in the modeling of interatomic forces, coupled with qualitative improvements in computer hardware, are enabling such simulations to approximate real-world microscale and nanoscale experiments

  10. Reaction dynamics of molecular hydrogen on silicon surfaces

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bratu, P.; Brenig, W.; Gross, A.

    1996-01-01

    of the preexponential factor by about one order of magnitude per lateral degree of freedom. Molecular vibrations have practically no effect on the adsorption/desorption dynamics itself, but lead to vibrational heating in desorption with a strong isotope effect. Ab initio calculations for the H-2 interaction...... between the two surfaces. These results indicate that tunneling, molecular vibrations, and the structural details of the surface play only a minor role for the adsorption dynamics. Instead, they appear to be governed by the localized H-Si bonding and Si-Si lattice vibrations. Theoretically, an effective......Experimental and theoretical results on the dynamics of dissociative adsorption and recombinative desorption of hydrogen on silicon are presented. Using optical second-harmonic generation, extremely small sticking probabilities in the range 10(-9)-10(-5) could be measured for H-2 and D-2 on Si(111...

  11. Molecular dynamics simulations of a lithium/sodium carbonate mixture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ottochian, Alistar; Ricca, Chiara; Labat, Frederic; Adamo, Carlo

    2016-03-01

    The diffusion and ionic conductivity of Li x Na1-x CO3 salt mixtures were studied by means of Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations, using the Janssen and Tissen model (Janssen and Tissen, Mol Simul 5:83-98; 1990). These salts have received particular attention due to their central role in fuel cells technology, and reliable numerical methods that could perform as important interpretative tool of experimental data are thus required but still lacking. The chosen computational model nicely reproduces the main structural behaviour of the pure Li2CO3, Na2CO3 and K2CO3 carbonates, but also of their Li/K and Li/Na mixtures. However, it fails to accurately describe dynamic properties such as activation energies of diffusion and conduction processes, outlining the need to develop more accurate models for the simulation of molten salt carbonates.

  12. Glass transition temperature of PMMA/modified alumina nanocomposite: Molecular dynamic study

    OpenAIRE

    Mohammadi, Maryam; Davoodi, Jamal; Javanbakht, Mahdi; Rezaei, Hamidreza

    2017-01-01

    In this study, the effect of alumina and modified alumina nanoparticles in a PMMA/alumina nanocomposite was investigated. To attain this goal, the glass transition behavior of poly methyl methacrylate (PMMA), PMMA/alumina and PMMA/hydroxylated alumina nanocomposites were investigated by molecular dynamic simulations (MD). All the MD simulations were performed using the Materials Studio 6.0 software package of Accelrys. To obtain the glass transition temperature, the variation of density vs. t...

  13. State-to-state dynamics of molecular energy transfer

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gentry, W.R.; Giese, C.F. [Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis (United States)

    1993-12-01

    The goal of this research program is to elucidate the elementary dynamical mechanisms of vibrational and rotational energy transfer between molecules, at a quantum-state resolved level of detail. Molecular beam techniques are used to isolate individual molecular collisions, and to control the kinetic energy of collision. Lasers are used both to prepare specific quantum states prior to collision by stimulated-emission pumping (SEP), and to measure the distribution of quantum states in the collision products by laser-induced fluorescence (LIF). The results are interpreted in terms of dynamical models, which may be cast in a classical, semiclassical or quantum mechanical framework, as appropriate.

  14. Line-shape theory and molecular dynamics in collision-induced light scattering

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Balucani, U.; Tognetti, V.; Vallauri, R.

    1979-01-01

    Molecular-dynamics studies in argon at 148 amagats are presented for gaining information on the dynamical properties responsible for the depolarized light scattering from simple fluids. The total and pair-correlation functions are computed within the simple dipole--induced-dipole model of polarizability anisotropy. The pair spectral shape is derived. These results are compared with a theoretical analysis based on a continued-fraction approach. The necessary frequency moments are calculated both in the low-density limit and taking into account first-order density corrections, and compared with the molecular-dynamics data. The agreement between the theoretical spectra and molecular-dynamics data shows the validity of the memory-function approach. The comparison with the real experimental results allows one to test the relevant physical contributions to the polarizability anisotropy

  15. Algorithms of GPU-enabled reactive force field (ReaxFF) molecular dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheng, Mo; Li, Xiaoxia; Guo, Li

    2013-04-01

    Reactive force field (ReaxFF), a recent and novel bond order potential, allows for reactive molecular dynamics (ReaxFF MD) simulations for modeling larger and more complex molecular systems involving chemical reactions when compared with computation intensive quantum mechanical methods. However, ReaxFF MD can be approximately 10-50 times slower than classical MD due to its explicit modeling of bond forming and breaking, the dynamic charge equilibration at each time-step, and its one order smaller time-step than the classical MD, all of which pose significant computational challenges in simulation capability to reach spatio-temporal scales of nanometers and nanoseconds. The very recent advances of graphics processing unit (GPU) provide not only highly favorable performance for GPU enabled MD programs compared with CPU implementations but also an opportunity to manage with the computing power and memory demanding nature imposed on computer hardware by ReaxFF MD. In this paper, we present the algorithms of GMD-Reax, the first GPU enabled ReaxFF MD program with significantly improved performance surpassing CPU implementations on desktop workstations. The performance of GMD-Reax has been benchmarked on a PC equipped with a NVIDIA C2050 GPU for coal pyrolysis simulation systems with atoms ranging from 1378 to 27,283. GMD-Reax achieved speedups as high as 12 times faster than Duin et al.'s FORTRAN codes in Lammps on 8 CPU cores and 6 times faster than the Lammps' C codes based on PuReMD in terms of the simulation time per time-step averaged over 100 steps. GMD-Reax could be used as a new and efficient computational tool for exploiting very complex molecular reactions via ReaxFF MD simulation on desktop workstations. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Coulomb interactions via local dynamics: a molecular-dynamics algorithm

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pasichnyk, Igor; Duenweg, Burkhard

    2004-01-01

    We derive and describe in detail a recently proposed method for obtaining Coulomb interactions as the potential of mean force between charges which are dynamically coupled to a local electromagnetic field. We focus on the molecular dynamics version of the method and show that it is intimately related to the Car-Parrinello approach, while being equivalent to solving Maxwell's equations with a freely adjustable speed of light. Unphysical self-energies arise as a result of the lattice interpolation of charges, and are corrected by a subtraction scheme based on the exact lattice Green function. The method can be straightforwardly parallelized using standard domain decomposition. Some preliminary benchmark results are presented

  17. Dynamical heterogeneities of rotational motion in room temperature ionic liquids evidenced by molecular dynamics simulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Usui, Kota; Hunger, Johannes; Bonn, Mischa; Sulpizi, Marialore

    2018-05-01

    Room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) have been shown to exhibit spatial heterogeneity or structural heterogeneity in the sense that they form hydrophobic and ionic domains. Yet studies of the relationship between this structural heterogeneity and the ˜picosecond motion of the molecular constituents remain limited. In order to obtain insight into the time scales relevant to this structural heterogeneity, we perform molecular dynamics simulations of a series of RTILs. To investigate the relationship between the structures, i.e., the presence of hydrophobic and ionic domains, and the dynamics, we gradually increase the size of the hydrophobic part of the cation from ethylammonium nitrate (EAN), via propylammonium nitrate (PAN), to butylammonium nitrate (BAN). The two ends of the organic cation, namely, the charged Nhead-H group and the hydrophobic Ctail-H group, exhibit rotational dynamics on different time scales, evidencing dynamical heterogeneity. The dynamics of the Nhead-H group is slower because of the strong coulombic interaction with the nitrate counter-ionic anions, while the dynamics of the Ctail-H group is faster because of the weaker van der Waals interaction with the surrounding atoms. In particular, the rotation of the Nhead-H group slows down with increasing cationic chain length, while the rotation of the Ctail-H group shows little dependence on the cationic chain length, manifesting that the dynamical heterogeneity is enhanced with a longer cationic chain. The slowdown of the Nhead-H group with increasing cationic chain length is associated with a lower number of nitrate anions near the Nhead-H group, which presumably results in the increase of the energy barrier for the rotation. The sensitivity of the Nhead-H rotation to the number of surrounding nitrate anions, in conjunction with the varying number of nitrate anions, gives rise to a broad distribution of Nhead-H reorientation times. Our results suggest that the asymmetry of the cations and the

  18. Protein Dynamics in Organic Media at Varying Water Activity Studied by Molecular Dynamics Simulation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wedberg, Nils Hejle Rasmus Ingemar; Abildskov, Jens; Peters, Günther H.J.

    2012-01-01

    In nonaqueous enzymology, control of enzyme hydration is commonly approached by fixing the thermodynamic water activity of the medium. In this work, we present a strategy for evaluating the water activity in molecular dynamics simulations of proteins in water/organic solvent mixtures. The method...... relies on determining the water content of the bulk phase and uses a combination of Kirkwood−Buff theory and free energy calculations to determine corresponding activity coefficients. We apply the method in a molecular dynamics study of Candida antarctica lipase B in pure water and the organic solvents...

  19. Pitfall in quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical molecular dynamics simulation of small solutes in solution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Hao; Liu, Haiyan

    2013-05-30

    Developments in computing hardware and algorithms have made direct molecular dynamics simulation with the combined quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical methods affordable for small solute molecules in solution, in which much improved accuracy can be obtained via the quantum mechanical treatment of the solute molecule and even sometimes water molecules in the first solvation shell. However, unlike the conventional molecular mechanical simulations of large molecules, e.g., proteins, in solutions, special care must be taken in the technical details of the simulation, including the thermostat of the solute/solvent system, so that the conformational space of the solute molecules can be properly sampled. We show here that the common setup for classical molecular mechanical molecular dynamics simulations, such as the Berendsen or single Nose-Hoover thermostat, and/or rigid water models could lead to pathological sampling of the solutes' conformation. In the extreme example of a methanol molecule in aqueous solution, improper and sluggish setups could generate two peaks in the distribution of the O-H bond length. We discuss the factors responsible for this somewhat unexpected result and evoke a simple and ancient technical fix-up to resolve this problem.

  20. An improved molecular dynamics algorithm to study thermodiffusion in binary hydrocarbon mixtures

    Science.gov (United States)

    Antoun, Sylvie; Saghir, M. Ziad; Srinivasan, Seshasai

    2018-03-01

    In multicomponent liquid mixtures, the diffusion flow of chemical species can be induced by temperature gradients, which leads to a separation of the constituent components. This cross effect between temperature and concentration is known as thermodiffusion or the Ludwig-Soret effect. The performance of boundary driven non-equilibrium molecular dynamics along with the enhanced heat exchange (eHEX) algorithm was studied by assessing the thermodiffusion process in n-pentane/n-decane (nC5-nC10) binary mixtures. The eHEX algorithm consists of an extended version of the HEX algorithm with an improved energy conservation property. In addition to this, the transferable potentials for phase equilibria-united atom force field were employed in all molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to precisely model the molecular interactions in the fluid. The Soret coefficients of the n-pentane/n-decane (nC5-nC10) mixture for three different compositions (at 300.15 K and 0.1 MPa) were calculated and compared with the experimental data and other MD results available in the literature. Results of our newly employed MD algorithm showed great agreement with experimental data and a better accuracy compared to other MD procedures.

  1. Molecular simulations of electrolyte structure and dynamics in lithium-sulfur battery solvents

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Chanbum; Kanduč, Matej; Chudoba, Richard; Ronneburg, Arne; Risse, Sebastian; Ballauff, Matthias; Dzubiella, Joachim

    2018-01-01

    The performance of modern lithium-sulfur (Li/S) battery systems critically depends on the electrolyte and solvent compositions. For fundamental molecular insights and rational guidance of experimental developments, efficient and sufficiently accurate molecular simulations are thus in urgent need. Here, we construct a molecular dynamics (MD) computer simulation model of representative state-of-the art electrolyte-solvent systems for Li/S batteries constituted by lithium-bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonimide (LiTFSI) and LiNO3 electrolytes in mixtures of the organic solvents 1,2-dimethoxyethane (DME) and 1,3-dioxolane (DOL). We benchmark and verify our simulations by comparing structural and dynamic features with various available experimental reference systems and demonstrate their applicability for a wide range of electrolyte-solvent compositions. For the state-of-the-art battery solvent, we finally calculate and discuss the detailed composition of the first lithium solvation shell, the temperature dependence of lithium diffusion, as well as the electrolyte conductivities and lithium transference numbers. Our model will serve as a basis for efficient future predictions of electrolyte structure and transport in complex electrode confinements for the optimization of modern Li/S batteries (and related devices).

  2. Molecular dynamics study of lubricant depletion by pulsed laser heating

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seo, Young Woo; Rosenkranz, Andreas; Talke, Frank E.

    2018-05-01

    In this study, molecular dynamics simulations were performed to numerically investigate the effect of pulsed laser heating on lubricant depletion. The maximum temperature, the lubricant depletion width, the number of evaporated lubricant beads and the number of fragmented lubricant chains were studied as a function of laser peak power, pulse duration and repetition rate. A continuous-wave laser and a square pulse laser were simulated and compared to a Gaussian pulse laser. With increasing repetition rate, pulsed laser heating was found to approach continuous-wave laser heating.

  3. Electroporation of Skin Stratum Corneum Lipid Bilayer and Molecular Mechanism of Drug Transport: A Molecular Dynamics Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gupta, Rakesh; Rai, Beena

    2018-04-30

    Skin electroporation has been used significantly to increase the drug permeation. However, molecular mechanism, which resulted in enhancement of flux through skin, is still not known. In this study, extensive atomistic molecular dynamics simulation of skin lipids (made up of ceramide (CER), cholesterol (CHOL) and free fatty acid (FFA)) have been performed at various external electric field. We show for the first time the pore formation in the skin lipid bilayer during the electroporation. We show the effect of applied external electrical field on the pore formation dynamics in lipid bilayer of different size and composition. The pore formation and resealing kinetics were different and was found to be highly dependent on the composition of skin lipid bilayer. The pore formation time decreased with increase in the bilayer size. The pore sustaining electric field was found to be in the range of 0.20-0.25 V/nm for equimolar CER, CHOL and FFA lipid bilayer. The skin lipid bilayer (1:1:1), sealed itself within 20 ns after the removal of external electric field. We also present the molecular mechanism of enhancement of drug permeation in the presence of external field as compared to the passive diffusion. The molecular level understanding obtained here could help in optimizing/designing the electroporation experiments for effective drug delivery. For a given skin composition and size of drug molecule, the combination of pore formation time and pore growth model can be used to know aproiri the desired electric field and time for application of electric field.

  4. Molecular dynamics simulations of graphoepitaxy of organic semiconductors, sexithiophene, and pentacene: Molecular-scale mechanisms of organic graphoepitaxy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ikeda, Susumu

    2018-03-01

    Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of the organic semiconductors α-sexithiophene (6T) and pentacene were carried out to clarify the mechanism of organic graphoepitaxy at the molecular level. First, the models of the grooved substrates were made and the surfaces of the inside of the grooves were modified with -OH or -OSi(CH3)3, making the surfaces hydrophilic or hydrophobic. By the MD simulations of 6T, it was found that three stable azimuthal directions exist (0, ˜45, and 90° the angle that the c-axis makes with the groove), being consistent with experimental results. MD simulations of deposition processes of 6T and pentacene were also carried out, and pentacene molecules showed the spontaneous formation of herringbone packing during deposition. Some pentacene molecules stood on the surface and formed a cluster whose a-axis was parallel to the groove. It is expected that a deep understanding of the molecular-scale mechanisms will lead graphoepitaxy to practical applications, improving the performance of organic devices.

  5. Self-diffusion in monodisperse three-dimensional magnetic fluids by molecular dynamics simulations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dobroserdova, A.B. [Ural Federal University, Lenin Av. 51, Ekaterinburg (Russian Federation); Kantorovich, S.S., E-mail: alla.dobroserdova@urfu.ru [Ural Federal University, Lenin Av. 51, Ekaterinburg (Russian Federation); University of Vienna, Sensengasse 8, Vienna (Austria)

    2017-06-01

    In the present work we study the self-diffusion behaviour in the three-dimensional monodisperse magnetic fluids using the Molecular Dynamics Simulation and Density Functional Theory. The peculiarity of computer simulation is to study two different systems: dipolar and soft sphere ones. In the theoretical method, it is important to choose the approximation for the main structures, which are chains. We compare the theoretical results and the computer simulation data for the self-diffusion coefficient as a function of the particle volume fraction and magnetic dipole-dipole interaction parameter and find the qualitative and quantitative agreement to be good. - Highlights: • The paper deals with the study of the self-diffusion in monodisperse three-dimensional magnetic fluids. • The theoretical approach contains the free energy density functional minimization. • Computer simulations are performed by the molecular dynamics method. • We have a good qualitative and quantitative agreement between the theoretical results and computer simulation data.

  6. Mobility of hydrogen-helium clusters in tungsten studied by molecular dynamics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Grigorev, Petr, E-mail: grigorievpit@gmail.com [SCK-CEN, Nuclear Materials Science Institute, Boeretang 200, Mol, 2400 (Belgium); Ghent University, Applied Physics EA17 FUSION-DC, St.Pietersnieuwstraat, 41 B4, B-9000, Gent (Belgium); Department of Experimental Nuclear Physics K-89, Institute of Physics, Nanotechnologies, and Telecommunications, Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg (Russian Federation); Terentyev, Dmitry; Bonny, Giovanni [SCK-CEN, Nuclear Materials Science Institute, Boeretang 200, Mol, 2400 (Belgium); Zhurkin, Evgeny E. [Department of Experimental Nuclear Physics K-89, Institute of Physics, Nanotechnologies, and Telecommunications, Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg (Russian Federation); Oost, Guido van [Ghent University, Applied Physics EA17 FUSION-DC, St.Pietersnieuwstraat, 41 B4, B-9000, Gent (Belgium); Noterdaeme, Jean-Marie [Ghent University, Applied Physics EA17 FUSION-DC, St.Pietersnieuwstraat, 41 B4, B-9000, Gent (Belgium); Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, Garching (Germany)

    2016-06-15

    Tungsten is a primary candidate material for plasma facing components in fusion reactors. Interaction of plasma components with the material is unavoidable and will lead to degradation of the performance and the lifetime of the in-vessel components. In order to gain better understanding the mechanisms driving the material degradation at atomic level, atomistic simulations are employed. In this work we study migration, stability and self-trapping properties of pure helium and mixed helium-hydrogen clusters in tungsten by means of molecular dynamics simulations. We test two versions of an embedded atom model interatomic potential by comparing it with ab initio data regarding the binding properties of He clusters. By analysing the trajectories of the clusters during molecular dynamics simulations at finite temperatures we obtain the diffusion parameters. The results show that the diffusivity of mixed clusters is significantly lower, than that of pure helium clusters. The latter suggest that the formation of mixed clusters during mixed hydrogen helium plasma exposure will affect the helium diffusivity in the material.

  7. Interaction sorting method for molecular dynamics on multi-core SIMD CPU architecture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matvienko, Sergey; Alemasov, Nikolay; Fomin, Eduard

    2015-02-01

    Molecular dynamics (MD) is widely used in computational biology for studying binding mechanisms of molecules, molecular transport, conformational transitions, protein folding, etc. The method is computationally expensive; thus, the demand for the development of novel, much more efficient algorithms is still high. Therefore, the new algorithm designed in 2007 and called interaction sorting (IS) clearly attracted interest, as it outperformed the most efficient MD algorithms. In this work, a new IS modification is proposed which allows the algorithm to utilize SIMD processor instructions. This paper shows that the improvement provides an additional gain in performance, 9% to 45% in comparison to the original IS method.

  8. Note: Local thermal conductivities from boundary driven non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bresme, F.; Armstrong, J.

    2014-01-01

    We report non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of heat transport in models of molecular fluids. We show that the “local” thermal conductivities obtained from non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations agree within numerical accuracy with equilibrium Green-Kubo computations. Our results support the local equilibrium hypothesis for transport properties. We show how to use the local dependence of the thermal gradients to quantify the thermal conductivity of molecular fluids for a wide range of thermodynamic states using a single simulation

  9. Molecular dynamics simulation of electron trapping in the sapphire lattice

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rambaut, C.; Oh, K.H.; Fayeulle, S.; Kohanoff, J.

    1995-10-01

    Energy storage and release in dielectric materials can be described on the basis of the charge trapping mechanism. Most phenomenological aspects have been recently rationalized in terms of the space charge mode. Dynamical aspects are studied here by performing Molecular Dynamics simulations. We show that an excess electron introduced into the sapphire lattice (α -Al 2 O 3 ) can be trapped only at a limited number of sites. The energy gained by allowing the electron to localize in these sites is of the order of 4-5 eV, in good agreement with the results of the space charge model. Displacements of the neighboring ions due to the implanted charge are shown to be localized in a small region of about 5 A. Detrapping is observed at 250 K. The ionic displacements turn out to play an important role in modifying the potential landscape by lowering, in a dynamical way, the barriers that cause localization at low temperature. (author). 18 refs, 7 figs, 2 tabs

  10. Nano-confined water in the interlayers of hydrocalumite: Reorientational dynamics probed by neutron spectroscopy and molecular dynamics computer simulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalinichev, A. G.; Faraone, A.; Udovic, T.; Kolesnikov, A. I.; de Souza, N. R.; Reinholdt, M. X.; Kirkpatrick, R.

    2008-12-01

    Layered double hydroxides (LDHs, anionic clays) represent excellent model systems for detailed molecular- level studies of the structure, dynamics, and energetics of nano-confined water in mineral interlayers and nano-pores, because LDH interlayers can have a well-defined structures and contain H2O molecules and a wide variety of anions in structurally well-defined positions and coordinations. [Ca2Al(OH)6]Cl·2H2O, also known as hydrocalumite or Friedel's salt, has a well- ordered Ca,Al distribution in the hydroxide layer and a very high degree of H2O,Cl ordering in the interlayer. It is also one of the only LDH phase for which a single crystal structure refinement is available. Thus, it is currently the best model compound for understanding the structure and dynamical behavior of interlayer and surface species in other, less-ordered, LDHs. We investigated the structural and dynamic behavior of water in the interlayers of hydrocalumite using inelastic (INS) and quasielastic (QENS) neutron scattering and molecular dynamics computer simulations. The comperehensive neutron scattering studies were performed for one fully hydrated and one dehydrated sample of hydrocalumite using several complementary instruments (HFBS, DCS and FANS at NCNR; HRMECS and QENS at IPNS) at temperatures above and below the previously discovered order-disorder interlayer phase transition. Together the experimental and molecular modeling results capture the important details of the dynamics of nano-confined water and the effects of the orientational ordering of H2O molecules above and below the phase transition. They provide otherwise unobtainable experimental information about the transformation of H2O librational and diffusional modes across the order-disorder phase transition and significantly add to our current understanding of the structure and dynamics of water in LDH phases based on the earlier NMR, IR, X-ray, and calorimetric measurements. The approach can now be extended to probe the

  11. Dynamics of polymers in a good solvent - a molecular dynamics study using the Connection Machine

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shannon, S.R.; Choy, T.C.

    1996-01-01

    In recent times the use of molecular dynamics simulations has become an important tool in modelling and understanding the dynamics of interacting many-body systems. With recent advances in computing power it is now feasible to perform modelling of systems which contain a large number of interacting particles, and thus to simulate the behaviour of real systems reasonably. Our earlier discoveries of anomalous corrections to scaling behaviour of the Edward's polymer were applied to study the dynamical behaviour of two dimensional polymer systems - either a single chain immersed in a fluid, a pure polymer melt, or with any concentration of polymers in the fluid. By choosing a suitable interaction potential between the fluid particles and the monomers, we are able to study the experimentally observable time dependent structure factor of polymers in a good solvent. Simulations were performed using the Connection Machine CM5 supercomputer at the Australian National University which due to its fast multi- processor nearest neighbour communications facility, enables us to easily model large systems of at least 3000 fluid plus monomer particles. Our study is based on a finite difference solution of Newton's equations of motion i.e. the Verlet algorithm, and the results are used to test current theories of polymer dynamics, which were based primarily on the earlier models proposed by Rouse (1953) and Zimm (1956). In particular dynamical scaling predictions is scrutinised to examine the effects due to the anomalous corrections-to-scaling behaviour found in an earlier work using finite-size scaling analysis of Monte-Carlo data and now understood via a new perturbation concept

  12. A hybrid algorithm for parallel molecular dynamics simulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mangiardi, Chris M.; Meyer, R.

    2017-10-01

    This article describes algorithms for the hybrid parallelization and SIMD vectorization of molecular dynamics simulations with short-range forces. The parallelization method combines domain decomposition with a thread-based parallelization approach. The goal of the work is to enable efficient simulations of very large (tens of millions of atoms) and inhomogeneous systems on many-core processors with hundreds or thousands of cores and SIMD units with large vector sizes. In order to test the efficiency of the method, simulations of a variety of configurations with up to 74 million atoms have been performed. Results are shown that were obtained on multi-core systems with Sandy Bridge and Haswell processors as well as systems with Xeon Phi many-core processors.

  13. Fermionic molecular dynamics for colliding and decaying nuclei

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Feldmeier, H.; Schnack, J.

    1993-11-01

    Fermionic Molecular Dynamics models a system of fermions by means of a trial many-body state composed of an antisymmetrized product of single-particle states which are localized gaussians in coordinate and momentum space. The parameters specifying them are the analogue to the variables in classical molecular dynamics. The time-dependent variational principle yields the equations of motion which are solved for collisions of 12 C+ 12 C and deexcitations of 12 C. The collisions show a great variety of phenomena including explosion, sequential fragmentation and multifragmentation. The deexcitation for nuclei with E * /A ∼ 5MeV is dominated by particle evaporation on time scales of the order of 10 -20 s or longer. (orig.)

  14. Optical spectra and lattice dynamics of molecular crystals

    CERN Document Server

    Zhizhin, GN

    1995-01-01

    The current volume is a single topic volume on the optical spectra and lattice dynamics of molecular crystals. The book is divided into two parts. Part I covers both the theoretical and experimental investigations of organic crystals. Part II deals with the investigation of the structure, phase transitions and reorientational motion of molecules in organic crystals. In addition appendices are given which provide the parameters for the calculation of the lattice dynamics of molecular crystals, procedures for the calculation of frequency eigenvectors of utilizing computers, and the frequencies and eigenvectors of lattice modes for several organic crystals. Quite a large amount of Russian literature is cited, some of which has previously not been available to scientists in the West.

  15. Molecular dynamics studies of the dynamics of supercooled Lennard-Jones liquids

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    De Leeuw, S.W.; Brakkee, M.J.D.

    1990-01-01

    Results are presented of molecular dynamics experiments, in which the Lennard-Jones liquid is cooled isobarically into the metastable temperature region below the freezing temperature. The variation of the density-density and transverse current correlation functions with temperature is studied. We observed a power-law behaviour for the temperature dependence of dynamical properties (viscosity and coefficienty of self-diffusion) with an exponent in good agreement with prediction of mode coupling theories and recent experimental results. (author). 23 refs, 5 figs

  16. Charge-dependent conformations and dynamics of pamam dendrimers revealed by neutron scattering and molecular dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Bin

    , at neutral condition, the exterior residues folding back into interior would necessarily lead to higher entropy and equivalently lower free energy and thereby is energetically favored. As one decreases the pH condition of PAMAM dendrimers, the constituent residues would carry positive charges. The resultant inter-residue Coulomb repulsion would naturally result in conformational evolution. We found from CVSANS analysis that when dendrimers are charged by different acids, this conformational evolution is not the same. For dendrimers charged by DCl, the mass is seen to relocate from molecular interior to periphery. Nevertheless, those acidified by D 2SO4 exhibit surprisingly minor structural change under variation of molecular charge. To explain the above observation, we performed MD simulations and calculated the excess free energy of Cl- and SO 42- counterions. The binding between sulfate ions and charged amines of PAMAM dendrimers are found to be much stronger than the case for chlorides. This more energetic binding would serve as better screening effect among charged residues. Consequently, electrostatic repulsion triggered outstretching tendency is effectively diminished. In order to make direct comparison between MD simulations and neutron scattering experiments, we proposed and implemented a rigorous method, which incorporates the contribution from those invasive water molecules, to calculate scattering functions of a single PAMAM dendrimer using equilibrium MD trajectories. The bridge between neutron scattering experiments and MD simulation is successfully established. Aside from structural comparisons between MD simulations and experiments, we utilized MD simulation to decipher the previously reported QENS experimental observation that the segmental dynamics of PAMAM dendrimer would enhance with increasing molecular charge. We pursued the mechanism from the perspective of hydrocarbon component of dendrimer and solvent (water) interaction as a form similar to

  17. Structural insights of Staphylococcus aureus FtsZ inhibitors through molecular docking, 3D-QSAR and molecular dynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ballu, Srilata; Itteboina, Ramesh; Sivan, Sree Kanth; Manga, Vijjulatha

    2018-02-01

    Filamentous temperature-sensitive protein Z (FtsZ) is a protein encoded by the FtsZ gene that assembles into a Z-ring at the future site of the septum of bacterial cell division. Structurally, FtsZ is a homolog of eukaryotic tubulin but has low sequence similarity; this makes it possible to obtain FtsZ inhibitors without affecting the eukaryotic cell division. Computational studies were performed on a series of substituted 3-arylalkoxybenzamide derivatives reported as inhibitors of FtsZ activity in Staphylococcus aureus. Quantitative structure-activity relationship models (QSAR) models generated showed good statistical reliability, which is evident from r 2 ncv and r 2 loo values. The predictive ability of these models was determined and an acceptable predictive correlation (r 2 Pred ) values were obtained. Finally, we performed molecular dynamics simulations in order to examine the stability of protein-ligand interactions. This facilitated us to compare free binding energies of cocrystal ligand and newly designed molecule B1. The good concordance between the docking results and comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA)/comparative molecular similarity indices analysis (CoMSIA) contour maps afforded obliging clues for the rational modification of molecules to design more potent FtsZ inhibitors.

  18. Preserving the Boltzmann ensemble in replica-exchange molecular dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cooke, Ben; Schmidler, Scott C

    2008-10-28

    We consider the convergence behavior of replica-exchange molecular dynamics (REMD) [Sugita and Okamoto, Chem. Phys. Lett. 314, 141 (1999)] based on properties of the numerical integrators in the underlying isothermal molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We show that a variety of deterministic algorithms favored by molecular dynamics practitioners for constant-temperature simulation of biomolecules fail either to be measure invariant or irreducible, and are therefore not ergodic. We then show that REMD using these algorithms also fails to be ergodic. As a result, the entire configuration space may not be explored even in an infinitely long simulation, and the simulation may not converge to the desired equilibrium Boltzmann ensemble. Moreover, our analysis shows that for initial configurations with unfavorable energy, it may be impossible for the system to reach a region surrounding the minimum energy configuration. We demonstrate these failures of REMD algorithms for three small systems: a Gaussian distribution (simple harmonic oscillator dynamics), a bimodal mixture of Gaussians distribution, and the alanine dipeptide. Examination of the resulting phase plots and equilibrium configuration densities indicates significant errors in the ensemble generated by REMD simulation. We describe a simple modification to address these failures based on a stochastic hybrid Monte Carlo correction, and prove that this is ergodic.

  19. Molecular Dynamic Simulations of Nanostructured Ceramic Materials on Parallel Computers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vashishta, Priya; Kalia, Rajiv

    2005-01-01

    Large-scale molecular-dynamics (MD) simulations have been performed to gain insight into: (1) sintering, structure, and mechanical behavior of nanophase SiC and SiO2; (2) effects of dynamic charge transfers on the sintering of nanophase TiO2; (3) high-pressure structural transformation in bulk SiC and GaAs nanocrystals; (4) nanoindentation in Si3N4; and (5) lattice mismatched InAs/GaAs nanomesas. In addition, we have designed a multiscale simulation approach that seamlessly embeds MD and quantum-mechanical (QM) simulations in a continuum simulation. The above research activities have involved strong interactions with researchers at various universities, government laboratories, and industries. 33 papers have been published and 22 talks have been given based on the work described in this report

  20. Orthonormal Wavelet Bases for Quantum Molecular Dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tymczak, C.; Wang, X.

    1997-01-01

    We report on the use of compactly supported, orthonormal wavelet bases for quantum molecular-dynamics (Car-Parrinello) algorithms. A wavelet selection scheme is developed and tested for prototypical problems, such as the three-dimensional harmonic oscillator, the hydrogen atom, and the local density approximation to atomic and molecular systems. Our method shows systematic convergence with increased grid size, along with improvement on compression rates, thereby yielding an optimal grid for self-consistent electronic structure calculations. copyright 1997 The American Physical Society

  1. Non-Adiabatic Molecular Dynamics Methods for Materials Discovery

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Furche, Filipp [Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States); Parker, Shane M. [Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States); Muuronen, Mikko J. [Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States); Roy, Saswata [Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)

    2017-04-04

    The flow of radiative energy in light-driven materials such as photosensitizer dyes or photocatalysts is governed by non-adiabatic transitions between electronic states and cannot be described within the Born-Oppenheimer approximation commonly used in electronic structure theory. The non-adiabatic molecular dynamics (NAMD) methods based on Tully surface hopping and time-dependent density functional theory developed in this project have greatly extended the range of molecular materials that can be tackled by NAMD simulations. New algorithms to compute molecular excited state and response properties efficiently were developed. Fundamental limitations of common non-linear response methods were discovered and characterized. Methods for accurate computations of vibronic spectra of materials such as black absorbers were developed and applied. It was shown that open-shell TDDFT methods capture bond breaking in NAMD simulations, a longstanding challenge for single-reference molecular dynamics simulations. The methods developed in this project were applied to study the photodissociation of acetaldehyde and revealed that non-adiabatic effects are experimentally observable in fragment kinetic energy distributions. Finally, the project enabled the first detailed NAMD simulations of photocatalytic water oxidation by titania nanoclusters, uncovering the mechanism of this fundamentally important reaction for fuel generation and storage.

  2. Dynamic combinatorial libraries based on hydrogen-bonde molecular boxes

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kerckhoffs, J.M.C.A.; Mateos timoneda, Miguel; Reinhoudt, David; Crego Calama, Mercedes

    2007-01-01

    This article describes two different types of dynamic combinatorial libraries of host and guest molecules. The first part of this article describes the encapsulation of alizarin trimer 2 a3 by dynamic mixtures of up to twenty different self-assembled molecular receptors together with the

  3. Molecular dynamics for reactions of heterogeneous catalysis

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jansen, A.P.J.; Brongersma, H.H.; Santen, van R.A.

    1991-01-01

    An overview is given of Molecular Dynamics, and numerical integration techniques, system initialization, boundary conditions, force representation, statistics, system size, and simulations duration are discussed. Examples from surface science are used to illustrate the pros and cons of the method.

  4. Molecular dynamics simulations on PGLa using NMR orientational constraints

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sternberg, Ulrich, E-mail: ulrich.sternberg@partner.kit.edu; Witter, Raiker [Tallinn University of Technology, Technomedicum (Estonia)

    2015-11-15

    NMR data obtained by solid state NMR from anisotropic samples are used as orientational constraints in molecular dynamics simulations for determining the structure and dynamics of the PGLa peptide within a membrane environment. For the simulation the recently developed molecular dynamics with orientational constraints technique (MDOC) is used. This method introduces orientation dependent pseudo-forces into the COSMOS-NMR force field. Acting during a molecular dynamics simulation these forces drive molecular rotations, re-orientations and folding in such a way that the motional time-averages of the tensorial NMR properties are consistent with the experimentally measured NMR parameters. This MDOC strategy does not depend on the initial choice of atomic coordinates, and is in principle suitable for any flexible and mobile kind of molecule; and it is of course possible to account for flexible parts of peptides or their side-chains. MDOC has been applied to the antimicrobial peptide PGLa and a related dimer model. With these simulations it was possible to reproduce most NMR parameters within the experimental error bounds. The alignment, conformation and order parameters of the membrane-bound molecule and its dimer were directly derived with MDOC from the NMR data. Furthermore, this new approach yielded for the first time the distribution of segmental orientations with respect to the membrane and the order parameter tensors of the dimer systems. It was demonstrated the deuterium splittings measured at the peptide to lipid ratio of 1/50 are consistent with a membrane spanning orientation of the peptide.

  5. Molecular dynamics simulations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Alder, B.J.

    1985-07-01

    The molecular dynamics computer simulation discovery of the slow decay of the velocity autocorrelation function in fluids is briefly reviewed in order to contrast that long time tail with those observed for the stress autocorrelation function in fluids and the velocity autocorrelation function in the Lorentz gas. For a non-localized particle in the Lorentz gas it is made plausible that even if it behaved quantum mechanically its long time tail would be the same as the classical one. The generalization of Fick's law for diffusion for the Lorentz gas, necessary to avoid divergences due to the slow decay of correlations, is presented. For fluids, that generalization has not yet been established, but the region of validity of generalized hydrodynamics is discussed. 20 refs., 5 figs

  6. A new algorithm for extended nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of mixed flow

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hunt, T.A.; Hunt, Thomas A.; Bernardi, Stefano; Todd, B.D.

    2010-01-01

    In this work, we develop a new algorithm for nonequilibrium molecular dynamics of fluids under planar mixed flow, a linear combination of planar elongational flow and planar Couette flow. To date, the only way of simulating mixed flow using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics techniques was to impose

  7. A Flexible, Grid-Enabled Web Portal for GROMACS Molecular Dynamics Simulations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Dijk, Marc; Wassenaar, Tsjerk A; Bonvin, Alexandre M J J

    2012-01-01

    Molecular dynamics simulations are becoming a standard part of workflows in structural biology. They are used for tasks as diverse as assessing molecular flexibility, probing conformational changes, assessing the impact of mutations, or gaining information about molecular interactions. However,

  8. A flexible, grid-enabled web portal for GROMACS molecular dynamics simulations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Dijk, M.; Wassenaar, T.A.; Bonvin, A.M.J.J.

    2012-01-01

    Molecular dynamics simulations are becoming a standard part of workflows in structural biology. They are used for tasks as diverse as assessing molecular flexibility, probing conformational changes, assessing the impact of mutations, or gaining information about molecular interactions. However,

  9. Reaction dynamics in polyatomic molecular systems

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Miller, W.H. [Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, CA (United States)

    1993-12-01

    The goal of this program is the development of theoretical methods and models for describing the dynamics of chemical reactions, with specific interest for application to polyatomic molecular systems of special interest and relevance. There is interest in developing the most rigorous possible theoretical approaches and also in more approximate treatments that are more readily applicable to complex systems.

  10. Characterization of Hydrophobic Interactions of Polymers with Water and Phospholipid Membranes Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Drenscko, Mihaela

    Polymers and lipid membranes are both essential soft materials. The structure and hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity of polymers, as well as the solvent they are embedded in, ultimately determines their size and shape. Understating the variation of shape of the polymer as well as its interactions with model biological membranes can assist in understanding the biocompatibility of the polymer itself. Computer simulations, in particular molecular dynamics, can aid in characterization of the interaction of polymers with solvent, as well as polymers with model membranes. In this thesis, molecular dynamics serve to describe polymer interactions with a solvent (water) and with a lipid membrane. To begin with, we characterize the hydrophobic collapse of single polystyrene chains in water using molecular dynamics simulations. Specifically, we calculate the potential of mean force for the collapse of a single polystyrene chain in water using metadynamics, comparing the results between all atomistic with coarse-grained molecular simulation. We next explore the scaling behavior of the collapsed globular shape at the minimum energy configuration, characterized by the radius of gyration, as a function of chain length. The exponent is close to one third, consistent with that predicted for a polymer chain in bad solvent. We also explore the scaling behavior of the Solvent Accessible Surface Area (SASA) as a function of chain length, finding a similar exponent for both all-atomistic and coarse-grained simulations. Furthermore, calculation of the local water density as a function of chain length near the minimum energy configuration suggests that intermediate chain lengths are more likely to form dewetted states, as compared to shorter or longer chain lengths. Next, in order to investigate the molecular interactions between single hydrophobic polymer chains and lipids in biological membranes and at lipid membrane/solvent interface, we perform a series of molecular dynamics simulations of

  11. Energy conservation in molecular dynamics simulations of classical systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Toxværd, Søren; Heilmann, Ole; Dyre, J. C.

    2012-01-01

    Classical Newtonian dynamics is analytic and the energy of an isolated system is conserved. The energy of such a system, obtained by the discrete “Verlet” algorithm commonly used in molecular dynamics simulations, fluctuates but is conserved in the mean. This is explained by the existence...

  12. Implementation of surface hopping molecular dynamics using semiempirical methods

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fabiano, E.; Keal, T.W.; Thiel, W.

    2008-01-01

    A molecular dynamics driver and surface hopping algorithm for nonadiabatic dynamics has been implemented in a development version of the MNDO semiempirical electronic structure package. The required energies, gradients and nonadiabatic couplings are efficiently evaluated on the fly using semiempirical configuration interaction methods. The choice of algorithms for the time evolution of the nuclear motion and quantum amplitudes is discussed, and different schemes for the computation of nonadiabatic couplings are analysed. The importance of molecular orbital tracking and electronic state following is underlined in the context of configuration interaction calculations. The method is applied to three case studies (ethylene, methaniminium ion, and methanimine) using the orthogonalization corrected OM2 Hamiltonian. In all three cases decay times and dynamics paths similar to high-level ab initio results are obtained

  13. Ab Initio molecular dynamics with excited electrons

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Alavi, A.; Kohanoff, J.; Parrinello, M.; Frenkel, D.

    1994-01-01

    A method to do ab initio molecular dynamics suitable for metallic and electronically hot systems is described. It is based on a density functional which is costationary with the finite-temperature functional of Mermin, with state being included with possibly fractional occupation numbers.

  14. Solvent Clathrate Driven Dynamic Stereomutation of a Supramolecular Polymer with Molecular Pockets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kulkarni, Chidambar; Korevaar, Peter A; Bejagam, Karteek K; Palmans, Anja R A; Meijer, E W; George, Subi J

    2017-10-04

    Control over the helical organization of synthetic supramolecular systems is intensively pursued to manifest chirality in a wide range of applications ranging from electron spin filters to artificial enzymes. Typically, switching the helicity of supramolecular assemblies involves external stimuli or kinetic traps. However, efforts to achieve helix reversal under thermodynamic control and to understand the phenomena at a molecular level are scarce. Here we present a unique example of helix reversal (stereomutation) under thermodynamic control in the self-assembly of a coronene bisimide that has a 3,5-dialkoxy substitution on the imide phenyl groups (CBI-35CH), leading to "molecular pockets" in the assembly. The stereomutation was observed only if the CBI monomer possesses molecular pockets. Detailed chiroptical studies performed in alkane solvents with different molecular structures reveal that solvent molecules intercalate or form clathrates within the molecular pockets of CBI-35CH at low temperature (263 K), thereby triggering the stereomutation. The interplay among the helical assembly, molecular pockets, and solvent molecules is further unraveled by explicit solvent molecular dynamics simulations. Our results demonstrate how the molecular design of self-assembling building blocks can orchestrate the organization of surrounding solvent molecules, which in turn dictates the helical organization of the resulting supramolecular assembly.

  15. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest ligand's binding to nicotinamidase/pyrazinamidase.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Ji-Long; Zheng, Qing-Chuan; Li, Zheng-Qiang; Zhang, Hong-Xing

    2012-01-01

    The research on the binding process of ligand to pyrazinamidase (PncA) is crucial for elucidating the inherent relationship between resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and PncA's activity. In the present study, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation methods were performed to investigate the unbinding process of nicotinamide (NAM) from two PncA enzymes, which is the reverse of the corresponding binding process. The calculated potential of mean force (PMF) based on the steered molecular dynamics (SMD) simulations sheds light on an optimal binding/unbinding pathway of the ligand. The comparative analyses between two PncAs clearly exhibit the consistency of the binding/unbinding pathway in the two enzymes, implying the universality of the pathway in all kinds of PncAs. Several important residues dominating the pathway were also determined by the calculation of interaction energies. The structural change of the proteins induced by NAM's unbinding or binding shows the great extent interior motion in some homologous region adjacent to the active sites of the two PncAs. The structure comparison substantiates that this region should be very important for the ligand's binding in all PncAs. Additionally, MD simulations also show that the coordination position of the ligand is displaced by one water molecule in the unliganded enzymes. These results could provide the more penetrating understanding of drug resistance of M. tuberculosis and be helpful for the development of new antituberculosis drugs.

  16. Molecular packing in 1-hexanol-DMPC bilayers studied by molecular dynamics simulation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, U.R.; Peters, Günther H.j.; Westh, P.

    2007-01-01

    The structure and molecular packing density of a “mismatched” solute, 1-hexanol, in lipid membranes of dimyristoyl phosphatidylcholine (DMPC) was studied by molecular dynamics simulations. We found that the average location and orientation of the hexanol molecules matched earlier experimental data...... on comparable systems. The local density or molecular packing in DMPC–hexanol was elucidated through the average Voronoi volumes of all heavy (non-hydrogen) atoms. Analogous analysis was conducted on trajectories from simulations of pure 1-hexanol and pure (hydrated) DMPC bilayers. The results suggested...... of the alcohol upon partitioning and an even stronger loosening in the packing of the lipid. Furthermore, analysis of Voronoi volumes along the membrane normal identifies a distinctive depth dependence of the changes in molecular packing. The outer (interfacial) part of the lipid acyl chains (up to C8...

  17. Evaporation characteristics of thin film liquid argon in nano-scale confinement: A molecular dynamics study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hasan, Mohammad Nasim; Shavik, Sheikh Mohammad; Rabbi, Kazi Fazle; Haque, Mominul

    2016-07-01

    Molecular dynamics simulation has been carried out to explore the evaporation characteristics of thin liquid argon film in nano-scale confinement. The present study has been conducted to realize the nano-scale physics of simultaneous evaporation and condensation inside a confined space for a three phase system with particular emphasis on the effect of surface wetting conditions. The simulation domain consisted of two parallel platinum plates; one at the top and another at the bottom. The fluid comprised of liquid argon film at the bottom plate and vapor argon in between liquid argon and upper plate of the domain. Considering hydrophilic and hydrophobic nature of top and bottom surfaces, two different cases have been investigated: (i) Case A: Both top and bottom surfaces are hydrophilic, (ii) Case B: both top and bottom surfaces are hydrophobic. For all cases, equilibrium molecular dynamics (EMD) was performed to reach equilibrium state at 90 K. Then the lower wall was set to four different temperatures such as 110 K, 120 K, 130 K and 140 K to perform non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD). The variation of temperature and density as well as the variation of system pressure with respect to time were closely monitored for each case. The heat fluxes normal to top and bottom walls were estimated and discussed to illuminate the effectiveness of heat transfer in both hydrophilic and hydrophobic confinement at various boundary temperatures of the bottom plate.

  18. A parametric study of surface roughness and bonding mechanisms of aluminum alloys with epoxies: a molecular dynamics simulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Timilsina, Rajendra; Termaath, Stephanie

    The marine environment is highly aggressive towards most materials. However, aluminium-magnesium alloys (Al-Mg, specifically, 5xxx series) have exceptionally long service life in such aggressive marine environments. For instance, an Al-Mg alloy, AA5083, is extensively used in naval structures because of its good mechanical strength, formability, seawater corrosion resistance and weldability. However, bonding mechanisms of these alloys with epoxies in a rough surface environment are not fully understood yet. It requires a rigorous investigation at molecular or atomic levels. We performed a molecular dynamics simulation to study an adherend surface preparation and surface bonding mechanisms of Al-Mg alloy (AA5083) with different epoxies by developing several computer models. Various distributions of surface roughness are introduced in the models and performed molecular dynamics simulations. Formation of a beta phase (Al3Mg2) , microstructures, bonding energies at the interface, bonding strengths and durability are investigated. Office of Naval Research.

  19. Structure, Dynamics, and Phase Behavior of DOPC/DSPC Mixture Membrane Systems: Molecular Dynamics Simulation Studies

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kim, Seonghan; Chang, Rakwoo [Kwangwoon University, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

    2016-07-15

    Full atomistic molecular dynamics simulations have been performed for model mixture bilayer membrane systems consisting of 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC) and 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DSPC) phospholipids to understand the effects of two essential parameters such as lipid composition and temperature on the structural, dynamical, and phase behavior of mixture membrane systems. Although pure DSPC membranes are in the gel-like (L{sub β}' or P{sub β}') phase at 323 K, raising the temperature by only 10 K or replacing 20% of DSPC lipids by DOPC lipids can change the gel-like phase into the completely liquid-crystalline phase (L{sub α}). This phase change is accompanied by dramatic change in both structural properties such as area per lipid, membrane thickness, deuterium order parameter, and tail angle distribution, and dynamics properties such as mobility map. We also observe that the full width at half-maximum (FWHM) data of tail angle distribution as well as area per lipid (or membrane thickness)can be used as order parameters for the membrane phase transition.

  20. Structure, Dynamics, and Phase Behavior of DOPC/DSPC Mixture Membrane Systems: Molecular Dynamics Simulation Studies

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Seonghan; Chang, Rakwoo

    2016-01-01

    Full atomistic molecular dynamics simulations have been performed for model mixture bilayer membrane systems consisting of 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC) and 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DSPC) phospholipids to understand the effects of two essential parameters such as lipid composition and temperature on the structural, dynamical, and phase behavior of mixture membrane systems. Although pure DSPC membranes are in the gel-like (L_β' or P_β') phase at 323 K, raising the temperature by only 10 K or replacing 20% of DSPC lipids by DOPC lipids can change the gel-like phase into the completely liquid-crystalline phase (L_α). This phase change is accompanied by dramatic change in both structural properties such as area per lipid, membrane thickness, deuterium order parameter, and tail angle distribution, and dynamics properties such as mobility map. We also observe that the full width at half-maximum (FWHM) data of tail angle distribution as well as area per lipid (or membrane thickness)can be used as order parameters for the membrane phase transition.

  1. Nanomaterials under extreme environments: A study of structural and dynamic properties using reactive molecular dynamics simulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shekhar, Adarsh

    Nanotechnology is becoming increasingly important with the continuing advances in experimental techniques. As researchers around the world are trying to expand the current understanding of the behavior of materials at the atomistic scale, the limited resolution of equipment, both in terms of time and space, act as roadblocks to a comprehensive study. Numerical methods, in general and molecular dynamics, in particular act as able compliment to the experiments in our quest for understanding material behavior. In this research work, large scale molecular dynamics simulations to gain insight into the mechano-chemical behavior under extreme conditions of a variety of systems with many real world applications. The body of this work is divided into three parts, each covering a particular system: 1) Aggregates of aluminum nanoparticles are good solid fuel due to high flame propagation rates. Multi-million atom molecular dynamics simulations reveal the mechanism underlying higher reaction rate in a chain of aluminum nanoparticles as compared to an isolated nanoparticle. This is due to the penetration of hot atoms from reacting nanoparticles to an adjacent, unreacted nanoparticle, which brings in external heat and initiates exothermic oxidation reactions. 2) Cavitation bubbles readily occur in fluids subjected to rapid changes in pressure. We use billion-atom reactive molecular dynamics simulations on a 163,840-processor BlueGene/P supercomputer to investigate chemical and mechanical damages caused by shock-induced collapse of nanobubbles in water near amorphous silica. Collapse of an empty nanobubble generates high-speed nanojet, resulting in the formation of a pit on the surface. The pit contains a large number of silanol groups and its volume is found to be directly proportional to the volume of the nanobubble. The gas-filled bubbles undergo partial collapse and consequently the damage on the silica surface is mitigated. 3) The structure and dynamics of water confined in

  2. Gas-Phase Molecular Dynamics: Theoretical Studies In Spectroscopy and Chemical Dynamics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yu H. G.; Muckerman, J.T.

    2012-05-29

    The main goal of this program is the development and application of computational methods for studying chemical reaction dynamics and molecular spectroscopy in the gas phase. We are interested in developing rigorous quantum dynamics algorithms for small polyatomic systems and in implementing approximate approaches for complex ones. Particular focus is on the dynamics and kinetics of chemical reactions and on the rovibrational spectra of species involved in combustion processes. This research also explores the potential energy surfaces of these systems of interest using state-of-the-art quantum chemistry methods, and extends them to understand some important properties of materials in condensed phases and interstellar medium as well as in combustion environments.

  3. Identification of Potential Herbal Inhibitor of Acetylcholinesterase Associated Alzheimer’s Disorders Using Molecular Docking and Molecular Dynamics Simulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chandrabhan Seniya

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Cholinesterase inhibitors (ChE-Is are the standard for the therapy of AD associated disorders and are the only class of approved drugs by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA. Additionally, acetylcholinesterase (AChE is the target for many Alzheimer’s dementia drugs which block the function of AChE but have some side effects. Therefore, in this paper, an attempt was made to elucidate cholinesterase inhibition potential of secondary metabolite from Cannabis plant which has negligible or no side effect. Molecular docking of 500 herbal compounds, against AChE, was performed using Autodock 4.2 as per the standard protocols. Molecular dynamics simulations have also been carried out to check stability of binding complex in water for 1000 ps. Our molecular docking and simulation have predicted high binding affinity of secondary metabolite (C28H34N2O6 to AChE. Further, molecular dynamics simulations for 1000 ps suggest that ligand interaction with the residues Asp72, Tyr70-121-334, and Phe288 of AChE, all of which fall under active site/subsite or binding pocket, might be critical for the inhibitory activity of AChE. This approach might be helpful to understand the selectivity of the given drug molecule in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The study provides evidence for consideration of C28H34N2O6 as a valuable small ligand molecule in treatment and prevention of AD associated disorders and further in vitro and in vivo investigations may prove its therapeutic potential.

  4. Bicanonical ab Initio Molecular Dynamics for Open Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frenzel, Johannes; Meyer, Bernd; Marx, Dominik

    2017-08-08

    Performing ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of open systems, where the chemical potential rather than the number of both nuclei and electrons is fixed, still is a challenge. Here, drawing on bicanonical sampling ideas introduced two decades ago by Swope and Andersen [ J. Chem. Phys. 1995 , 102 , 2851 - 2863 ] to calculate chemical potentials of liquids and solids, an ab initio simulation technique is devised, which introduces a fictitious dynamics of two superimposed but otherwise independent periodic systems including full electronic structure, such that either the chemical potential or the average fractional particle number of a specific chemical species can be kept constant. As proof of concept, we demonstrate that solvation free energies can be computed from these bicanonical ab initio simulations upon directly superimposing pure bulk water and the respective aqueous solution being the two limiting systems. The method is useful in many circumstances, for instance for studying heterogeneous catalytic processes taking place on surfaces where the chemical potential of reactants rather than their number is controlled and opens a pathway toward ab initio simulations at constant electrochemical potential.

  5. Molecular dynamics simulation of self-diffusion coefficients for liquid metals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ju Yuan-Yuan; Zhang Qing-Ming; Gong Zi-Zheng; Ji Guang-Fu

    2013-01-01

    The temperature-dependent coefficients of self-diffusion for liquid metals are simulated by molecular dynamics methods based on the embedded-atom-method (EAM) potential function. The simulated results show that a good inverse linear relation exists between the natural logarithm of self-diffusion coefficients and temperature, though the results in the literature vary somewhat, due to the employment of different potential functions. The estimated activation energy of liquid metals obtained by fitting the Arrhenius formula is close to the experimental data. The temperature-dependent shear-viscosities obtained from the Stokes—Einstein relation in conjunction with the results of molecular dynamics simulation are generally consistent with other values in the literature. (atomic and molecular physics)

  6. Porting of serial molecular dynamics code on MIMD platforms

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Celino, M.

    1995-05-01

    A molecular Dynamics (MD) code, utilized for the study of atomistic models of metallic systems has been parallelized for MIMD (Multiple Instructions Multiple Data) parallel platforms by means of the Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) message passing library. Since the parallelization implies modifications of the sequential algorithms, these are described from the point of view of the Statistical Mechanics theory. Furthermore, techniques and parallelization strategies utilized and the MD parallel code are described in detail. Benchmarks on several MIMD platforms (IBM SP1 and SP2, Cray T3D, Cluster of workstations) allow performances evaluation of the code versus the different characteristics of the parallel platforms

  7. Molecular mechanism of allosteric communication in Hsp70 revealed by molecular dynamics simulations.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Federica Chiappori

    Full Text Available Investigating ligand-regulated allosteric coupling between protein domains is fundamental to understand cell-life regulation. The Hsp70 family of chaperones represents an example of proteins in which ATP binding and hydrolysis at the Nucleotide Binding Domain (NBD modulate substrate recognition at the Substrate Binding Domain (SBD. Herein, a comparative analysis of an allosteric (Hsp70-DnaK and a non-allosteric structural homolog (Hsp110-Sse1 of the Hsp70 family is carried out through molecular dynamics simulations, starting from different conformations and ligand-states. Analysis of ligand-dependent modulation of internal fluctuations and local deformation patterns highlights the structural and dynamical changes occurring at residue level upon ATP-ADP exchange, which are connected to the conformational transition between closed and open structures. By identifying the dynamically responsive protein regions and specific cross-domain hydrogen-bonding patterns that differentiate Hsp70 from Hsp110 as a function of the nucleotide, we propose a molecular mechanism for the allosteric signal propagation of the ATP-encoded conformational signal.

  8. Dense fluid self-diffusion coefficient calculations using perturbation theory and molecular dynamics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    COELHO L. A. F.

    1999-01-01

    Full Text Available A procedure to correlate self-diffusion coefficients in dense fluids by using the perturbation theory (WCA coupled with the smooth-hard-sphere theory is presented and tested against molecular simulations and experimental data. This simple algebraic expression correlates well the self-diffusion coefficients of carbon dioxide, ethane, propane, ethylene, and sulfur hexafluoride. We have also performed canonical ensemble molecular dynamics simulations by using the Hoover-Nosé thermostat and the mean-square displacement formula to compute self-diffusion coefficients for the reference WCA intermolecular potential. The good agreement obtained from both methods, when compared with experimental data, suggests that the smooth-effective-sphere theory is a useful procedure to correlate diffusivity of pure substances.

  9. Catalysis and communication in dynamic molecular networks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Fanlo Virgos, Hugo

    2015-01-01

    The interactions of a Dynamic Combinatorial Library (DCL) of molecules with specific targets leads to composition changes of the library which can reveal potential guests and / or catalysts. In this thesis some chemical systems have been proposed to achieve a certain level of molecular complexity

  10. Molecular dynamics study of atomic displacements in disordered solid alloys

    Science.gov (United States)

    Puzyrev, Yevgeniy S.

    The effects of atomic displacements on the energetics of alloys plays important role in the determining the properties of alloys. We studied the atomic displacements in disordered solid alloys using molecular dynamics and Monte-Carlo methods. The diffuse scattering of pure materials, copper, gold, nickel, and palladium was calculated. The experimental data for pure Cu was obtained from diffuse scattering intensity of synchrotron x-ray radiation. The comparison showed the advantages of molecular dynamics method for calculating the atomic displacements in solid alloys. The individual nearest neighbor separations were calculated for Cu 50Au50 alloy and compared to the result of XAFS experiment. The molecular dynamics method provided theoretical predictions of nearest neighbor pair separations in other binary alloys, Cu-Pd and Cu-Al for wide range of the concentrations. We also experimentally recovered the diffuse scattering maps for the Cu47.3Au52.7 and Cu85.2Al14.8 alloy.

  11. Dynamics of relaxation to a stationary state for interacting molecular motors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gomes, Luiza V. F.; Kolomeisky, Anatoly B.

    2018-01-01

    Motor proteins are active enzymatic molecules that drive a variety of biological processes, including transfer of genetic information, cellular transport, cell motility and muscle contraction. It is known that these biological molecular motors usually perform their cellular tasks by acting collectively, and there are interactions between individual motors that specify the overall collective behavior. One of the fundamental issues related to the collective dynamics of motor proteins is the question if they function at stationary-state conditions. To investigate this problem, we analyze a relaxation to the stationary state for the system of interacting molecular motors. Our approach utilizes a recently developed theoretical framework, which views the collective dynamics of motor proteins as a totally asymmetric simple exclusion process of interacting particles, where interactions are taken into account via a thermodynamically consistent approach. The dynamics of relaxation to the stationary state is analyzed using a domain-wall method that relies on a mean-field description, which takes into account some correlations. It is found that the system quickly relaxes for repulsive interactions, while attractive interactions always slow down reaching the stationary state. It is also predicted that for some range of parameters the fastest relaxation might be achieved for a weak repulsive interaction. Our theoretical predictions are tested with Monte Carlo computer simulations. The implications of our findings for biological systems are briefly discussed.

  12. Bridging the gap between molecular dynamics simulations and phase-field modelling: dynamics of a [NixZr1-x]liquid-Zrcrystal solidification front

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Danilov, Denis; Nestler, Britta; Guerdane, Mohammed; Teichler, Helmar

    2009-01-01

    Results are presented from phase-field modelling and molecular dynamics simulations concerning the relaxation dynamics in a finite-temperature two-phase crystal-liquid sample subjected to an abrupt temperature drop. Relaxation takes place by propagation of the solidification front under formation of a spatially varying concentration profile in the melt. The molecular dynamics simulations are carried out with an interatomic model appropriate for the NiZr alloy system and provide the thermophysical data required for setting up the phase-field simulations. Regarding the concentration profile and velocity of the solidification front, best agreement between the phase-field model and molecular dynamics simulation is obtained when increasing the apparent diffusion coefficients in the phase-field treatment by a factor of four against their molecular dynamics estimates.

  13. Visualizing functional motions of membrane transporters with molecular dynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shaikh, Saher A; Li, Jing; Enkavi, Giray; Wen, Po-Chao; Huang, Zhijian; Tajkhorshid, Emad

    2013-01-29

    Computational modeling and molecular simulation techniques have become an integral part of modern molecular research. Various areas of molecular sciences continue to benefit from, indeed rely on, the unparalleled spatial and temporal resolutions offered by these technologies, to provide a more complete picture of the molecular problems at hand. Because of the continuous development of more efficient algorithms harvesting ever-expanding computational resources, and the emergence of more advanced and novel theories and methodologies, the scope of computational studies has expanded significantly over the past decade, now including much larger molecular systems and far more complex molecular phenomena. Among the various computer modeling techniques, the application of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and related techniques has particularly drawn attention in biomolecular research, because of the ability of the method to describe the dynamical nature of the molecular systems and thereby to provide a more realistic representation, which is often needed for understanding fundamental molecular properties. The method has proven to be remarkably successful in capturing molecular events and structural transitions highly relevant to the function and/or physicochemical properties of biomolecular systems. Herein, after a brief introduction to the method of MD, we use a number of membrane transport proteins studied in our laboratory as examples to showcase the scope and applicability of the method and its power in characterizing molecular motions of various magnitudes and time scales that are involved in the function of this important class of membrane proteins.

  14. Study of Effect of Impacting Direction on Abrasive Nanometric Cutting Process with Molecular Dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Junye; Meng, Wenqing; Dong, Kun; Zhang, Xinming; Zhao, Weihong

    2018-01-11

    Abrasive flow polishing plays an important part in modern ultra-precision machining. Ultrafine particles suspended in the medium of abrasive flow removes the material in nanoscale. In this paper, three-dimensional molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are performed to investigate the effect of impacting direction on abrasive cutting process during abrasive flow polishing. The molecular dynamics simulation software Lammps was used to simulate the cutting of single crystal copper with SiC abrasive grains at different cutting angles (0 o -45 o ). At a constant friction coefficient, we found a direct relation between cutting angle and cutting force, which ultimately increases the number of dislocation during abrasive flow machining. Our theoretical study reveal that a small cutting angle is beneficial for improving surface quality and reducing internal defects in the workpiece. However, there is no obvious relationship between cutting angle and friction coefficient.

  15. Laser Controlled Molecular Orientation Dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Atabek, O.

    2004-01-01

    Molecular orientation is a challenging control issue covering a wide range of applications from reactive collisions, high order harmonic generation, surface processing and catalysis, to nanotechnologies. The laser control scenario rests on the following three steps: (i) depict some basic mechanisms producing dynamical orientation; (ii) use them both as computational and interpretative tools in optimal control schemes involving genetic algorithms; (iii) apply what is learnt from optimal control to improve the basic mechanisms. The existence of a target molecular rotational state combining the advantages of efficient and post-pulse long duration orientation is shown. A strategy is developed for reaching such a target in terms of a train of successive short laser pulses applied at predicted time intervals. Each individual pulse imparts a kick to the molecule which orients. Transposition of such strategies to generic systems is now under investigation

  16. Molecular potentials and relaxation dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Karo, A.M.

    1981-01-01

    The use of empirical pseudopotentials, in evaluating interatomic potentials, provides an inexpensive and convenient method for obtaining highly accurate potential curves and permits the modeling of core-valence correlation, and the inclusion of relativistic effects when these are significant. Recent calculations of the X 1 Σ + and a 3 Σ + states of LiH, NaH, KH, RbH, and CsH and the X 2 Σ + states of their anions are discussed. Pseudopotentials, including core polarization terms, have been used to replace the core electrons, and this has been coupled with the development of compact, higly-optimized basis sets for the corresponding one- and two-electron atoms. Comparisons of the neutral potential curves with experiment and other ab initio calculations show good agreement (within 1000 cm -1 over most of the potential curves) with the difference curves being considerably more accurate. In the method of computer molecular dynamics, the force acting on each particle is the resultant of all interactions with other atoms in the neighborhood and is obtained as the derivative of an effective many-body potential. Exploiting the pseudopotential approach, in obtaining the appropriate potentials may be very fruitful in the future. In the molecular dynamics example considered here, the conventional sum-of-pairwise-interatomic-potentials (SPP) approximation is used with the potentials derived either from experimental spectroscopic data or from Hartree-Fock calculations. The problem is the collisional de-excitation of vibrationally excited molecular hydrogen at an Fe surface. The calculations have been carried out for an initial vibrotational state v = 8, J = 1 and a translational temperature corresponding to a gas temperature of 500 0 K. Different angles of approach and different initial random impact points on the surface have been selected. For any given collision with the wall, the molecule may pick up or lose vibrotatonal and translational energy

  17. Molecular Dynamics Simulation Study of Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and Their Mixture in the Presence of Brine

    KAUST Repository

    Yang, Yafan; Nair, Arun Kumar Narayanan; Sun, Shuyu

    2017-01-01

    We perform molecular dynamics simulation study of CO2, methane, and their mixture in the presence of brine over a broad range of temperature (311–473 K), pressure (up to about 100 MPa), and NaCl concentration (up to about 14 wt %). The general

  18. Molecular dynamics simulations of solutions at constant chemical potential

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perego, C.; Salvalaglio, M.; Parrinello, M.

    2015-04-01

    Molecular dynamics studies of chemical processes in solution are of great value in a wide spectrum of applications, which range from nano-technology to pharmaceutical chemistry. However, these calculations are affected by severe finite-size effects, such as the solution being depleted as the chemical process proceeds, which influence the outcome of the simulations. To overcome these limitations, one must allow the system to exchange molecules with a macroscopic reservoir, thus sampling a grand-canonical ensemble. Despite the fact that different remedies have been proposed, this still represents a key challenge in molecular simulations. In the present work, we propose the Constant Chemical Potential Molecular Dynamics (CμMD) method, which introduces an external force that controls the environment of the chemical process of interest. This external force, drawing molecules from a finite reservoir, maintains the chemical potential constant in the region where the process takes place. We have applied the CμMD method to the paradigmatic case of urea crystallization in aqueous solution. As a result, we have been able to study crystal growth dynamics under constant supersaturation conditions and to extract growth rates and free-energy barriers.

  19. The 2011 Dynamics of Molecular Collisions Conference

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Nesbitt, David J. [JILA, NIST

    2011-07-11

    The Dynamics of Molecular Collisions Conference focuses on all aspects of molecular collisions--experimental & theoretical studies of elastic, inelastic, & reactive encounters involving atoms, molecules, ions, clusters, & surfaces--as well as half collisions--photodissociation, photo-induced reaction, & photodesorption. The scientific program for the meeting in 2011 included exciting advances in both the core & multidisciplinary forefronts of the study of molecular collision processes. Following the format of the 2009 meeting, we also invited sessions in special topics that involve interfacial dynamics, novel emerging spectroscopies, chemical dynamics in atmospheric, combustion & interstellar environments, as well as a session devoted to theoretical & experimental advances in ultracold molecular samples. Researchers working inside & outside the traditional core topics of the meeting are encouraged to join the conference. We invite contributions of work that seeks understanding of how inter & intra-molecular forces determine the dynamics of the phenomena under study. In addition to invited oral sessions & contributed poster sessions, the scientific program included a formal session consisting of five contributed talks selected from the submitted poster abstracts. The DMC has distinguished itself by having the Herschbach Medal Symposium as part of the meeting format. This tradition of the Herschbach Medal was first started in the 2007 meeting chaired by David Chandler, based on a generous donation of funds & artwork design by Professor Dudley Herschbach himself. There are two such awards made, one for experimental & one for theoretical contributions to the field of Molecular Collision Dynamics, broadly defined. The symposium is always held on the last night of the meeting & has the awardees are asked to deliver an invited lecture on their work. The 2011 Herschbach Medal was dedicated to the contributions of two long standing leaders in Chemical Physics, Professor

  20. Molecular Effects of Concentrated Solutes on Protein Hydration, Dynamics, and Electrostatics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abriata, Luciano A; Spiga, Enrico; Peraro, Matteo Dal

    2016-08-23

    Most studies of protein structure and function are performed in dilute conditions, but proteins typically experience high solute concentrations in their physiological scenarios and biotechnological applications. High solute concentrations have well-known effects on coarse protein traits like stability, diffusion, and shape, but likely also perturb other traits through finer effects pertinent at the residue and atomic levels. Here, NMR and molecular dynamics investigations on ubiquitin disclose variable interactions with concentrated solutes that lead to localized perturbations of the protein's surface, hydration, electrostatics, and dynamics, all dependent on solute size and chemical properties. Most strikingly, small polar uncharged molecules are sticky on the protein surface, whereas charged small molecules are not, but the latter still perturb the internal protein electrostatics as they diffuse nearby. Meanwhile, interactions with macromolecular crowders are favored mainly through hydrophobic, but not through polar, surface patches. All the tested small solutes strongly slow down water exchange at the protein surface, whereas macromolecular crowders do not exert such strong perturbation. Finally, molecular dynamics simulations predict that unspecific interactions slow down microsecond- to millisecond-timescale protein dynamics despite having only mild effects on pico- to nanosecond fluctuations as corroborated by NMR. We discuss our results in the light of recent advances in understanding proteins inside living cells, focusing on the physical chemistry of quinary structure and cellular organization, and we reinforce the idea that proteins should be studied in native-like media to achieve a faithful description of their function. Copyright © 2016 Biophysical Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. Conformational and functional analysis of molecular dynamics trajectories by Self-Organising Maps

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stella Fabio

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Molecular dynamics (MD simulations are powerful tools to investigate the conformational dynamics of proteins that is often a critical element of their function. Identification of functionally relevant conformations is generally done clustering the large ensemble of structures that are generated. Recently, Self-Organising Maps (SOMs were reported performing more accurately and providing more consistent results than traditional clustering algorithms in various data mining problems. We present a novel strategy to analyse and compare conformational ensembles of protein domains using a two-level approach that combines SOMs and hierarchical clustering. Results The conformational dynamics of the α-spectrin SH3 protein domain and six single mutants were analysed by MD simulations. The Cα's Cartesian coordinates of conformations sampled in the essential space were used as input data vectors for SOM training, then complete linkage clustering was performed on the SOM prototype vectors. A specific protocol to optimize a SOM for structural ensembles was proposed: the optimal SOM was selected by means of a Taguchi experimental design plan applied to different data sets, and the optimal sampling rate of the MD trajectory was selected. The proposed two-level approach was applied to single trajectories of the SH3 domain independently as well as to groups of them at the same time. The results demonstrated the potential of this approach in the analysis of large ensembles of molecular structures: the possibility of producing a topological mapping of the conformational space in a simple 2D visualisation, as well as of effectively highlighting differences in the conformational dynamics directly related to biological functions. Conclusions The use of a two-level approach combining SOMs and hierarchical clustering for conformational analysis of structural ensembles of proteins was proposed. It can easily be extended to other study cases and to

  2. Conformational and functional analysis of molecular dynamics trajectories by Self-Organising Maps

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-01

    Background Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are powerful tools to investigate the conformational dynamics of proteins that is often a critical element of their function. Identification of functionally relevant conformations is generally done clustering the large ensemble of structures that are generated. Recently, Self-Organising Maps (SOMs) were reported performing more accurately and providing more consistent results than traditional clustering algorithms in various data mining problems. We present a novel strategy to analyse and compare conformational ensembles of protein domains using a two-level approach that combines SOMs and hierarchical clustering. Results The conformational dynamics of the α-spectrin SH3 protein domain and six single mutants were analysed by MD simulations. The Cα's Cartesian coordinates of conformations sampled in the essential space were used as input data vectors for SOM training, then complete linkage clustering was performed on the SOM prototype vectors. A specific protocol to optimize a SOM for structural ensembles was proposed: the optimal SOM was selected by means of a Taguchi experimental design plan applied to different data sets, and the optimal sampling rate of the MD trajectory was selected. The proposed two-level approach was applied to single trajectories of the SH3 domain independently as well as to groups of them at the same time. The results demonstrated the potential of this approach in the analysis of large ensembles of molecular structures: the possibility of producing a topological mapping of the conformational space in a simple 2D visualisation, as well as of effectively highlighting differences in the conformational dynamics directly related to biological functions. Conclusions The use of a two-level approach combining SOMs and hierarchical clustering for conformational analysis of structural ensembles of proteins was proposed. It can easily be extended to other study cases and to conformational ensembles from

  3. Nonpolar interactions between trans-membrane helical EGF peptide and phosphatidylcholines, sphingomyelins and cholesterol. Molecular dynamics simulation studies

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Róg, T.; Murzyn, K.; Karttunen, M.E.J.; Pasenkiewicz-Gierula, M.

    2008-01-01

    A molecular dynamics simulation study of four lipid bilayers with inserted trans-membrane helical fragment of epithelial growth factor (EGF) receptor (EGF peptide) was performed. The lipid bilayers differ in their lipid composition and consist of (i) unsaturated phosphatidylcholine

  4. Dynamical quenching of tunneling in molecular magnets

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    José Santander, María; Nunez, Alvaro S.; Roldán-Molina, A.; Troncoso, Roberto E.

    2015-01-01

    It is shown that a single molecular magnet placed in a rapidly oscillating magnetic field displays the phenomenon of quenching of tunneling processes. The results open a way to manipulate the quantum states of molecular magnets by means of radiation in the terahertz range. Our analysis separates the time evolution into slow and fast components thereby obtaining an effective theory for the slow dynamics. This effective theory presents quenching of the tunnel effect, in particular, stands out its difference with the so-called coherent destruction of tunneling. We support our prediction with numerical evidence based on an exact solution of Schrödinger's equation. - Highlights: • Single molecular magnets under rapidly oscillating magnetic fields is studied. • It is shown that this system displays the quenching of tunneling processes. • Our findings provide a control of quantum molecular magnets via terahertz radiation

  5. Dynamical quenching of tunneling in molecular magnets

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    José Santander, María, E-mail: maria.jose.noemi@gmail.com [Recursos Educativos Quántica, Santiago (Chile); Departamento de Física, Universidad de Santiago de Chile and CEDENNA, Avda. Ecuador 3493, Santiago (Chile); Nunez, Alvaro S., E-mail: alnunez@dfi.uchile.cl [Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 487-3, Santiago (Chile); Roldán-Molina, A. [Instituto de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Avenida Universidad 330, Curauma, Valparaíso (Chile); Troncoso, Roberto E., E-mail: r.troncoso.c@gmail.com [Centro para el Desarrollo de la Nanociencia y la Nanotecnología, CEDENNA, Avda. Ecuador 3493, Santiago 9170124 (Chile); Departamento de Física, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Avenida España 1680, Valparaíso (Chile)

    2015-12-15

    It is shown that a single molecular magnet placed in a rapidly oscillating magnetic field displays the phenomenon of quenching of tunneling processes. The results open a way to manipulate the quantum states of molecular magnets by means of radiation in the terahertz range. Our analysis separates the time evolution into slow and fast components thereby obtaining an effective theory for the slow dynamics. This effective theory presents quenching of the tunnel effect, in particular, stands out its difference with the so-called coherent destruction of tunneling. We support our prediction with numerical evidence based on an exact solution of Schrödinger's equation. - Highlights: • Single molecular magnets under rapidly oscillating magnetic fields is studied. • It is shown that this system displays the quenching of tunneling processes. • Our findings provide a control of quantum molecular magnets via terahertz radiation.

  6. A stochastic phase-field model determined from molecular dynamics

    KAUST Repository

    von Schwerin, Erik

    2010-03-17

    The dynamics of dendritic growth of a crystal in an undercooled melt is determined by macroscopic diffusion-convection of heat and by capillary forces acting on the nanometer scale of the solid-liquid interface width. Its modelling is useful for instance in processing techniques based on casting. The phase-field method is widely used to study evolution of such microstructural phase transformations on a continuum level; it couples the energy equation to a phenomenological Allen-Cahn/Ginzburg-Landau equation modelling the dynamics of an order parameter determining the solid and liquid phases, including also stochastic fluctuations to obtain the qualitatively correct result of dendritic side branching. This work presents a method to determine stochastic phase-field models from atomistic formulations by coarse-graining molecular dynamics. It has three steps: (1) a precise quantitative atomistic definition of the phase-field variable, based on the local potential energy; (2) derivation of its coarse-grained dynamics model, from microscopic Smoluchowski molecular dynamics (that is Brownian or over damped Langevin dynamics); and (3) numerical computation of the coarse-grained model functions. The coarse-grained model approximates Gibbs ensemble averages of the atomistic phase-field, by choosing coarse-grained drift and diffusion functions that minimize the approximation error of observables in this ensemble average. © EDP Sciences, SMAI, 2010.

  7. A stochastic phase-field model determined from molecular dynamics

    KAUST Repository

    von Schwerin, Erik; Szepessy, Anders

    2010-01-01

    The dynamics of dendritic growth of a crystal in an undercooled melt is determined by macroscopic diffusion-convection of heat and by capillary forces acting on the nanometer scale of the solid-liquid interface width. Its modelling is useful for instance in processing techniques based on casting. The phase-field method is widely used to study evolution of such microstructural phase transformations on a continuum level; it couples the energy equation to a phenomenological Allen-Cahn/Ginzburg-Landau equation modelling the dynamics of an order parameter determining the solid and liquid phases, including also stochastic fluctuations to obtain the qualitatively correct result of dendritic side branching. This work presents a method to determine stochastic phase-field models from atomistic formulations by coarse-graining molecular dynamics. It has three steps: (1) a precise quantitative atomistic definition of the phase-field variable, based on the local potential energy; (2) derivation of its coarse-grained dynamics model, from microscopic Smoluchowski molecular dynamics (that is Brownian or over damped Langevin dynamics); and (3) numerical computation of the coarse-grained model functions. The coarse-grained model approximates Gibbs ensemble averages of the atomistic phase-field, by choosing coarse-grained drift and diffusion functions that minimize the approximation error of observables in this ensemble average. © EDP Sciences, SMAI, 2010.

  8. Nanopore wall-liquid interaction under scope of molecular dynamics study: Review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsukanov, A. A.; Psakhie, S. G.

    2017-12-01

    The present review is devoted to the analysis of recent molecular dynamics based on the numerical studies of molecular aspects of solid-fluid interaction in nanoscale channels. Nanopore wall-liquid interaction plays the crucial role in such processes as gas separation, water desalination, liquids decontamination, hydrocarbons and water transport in nano-fractured geological formations. Molecular dynamics simulation is one of the most suitable tools to study molecular level effects occurred in such multicomponent systems. The nanopores are classified by their geometry to four groups: nanopore in nanosheet, nanotube-like pore, slit-shaped nanopore and soft-matter nanopore. The review is focused on the functionalized nanopores in boron nitride nanosheets as novel selective membranes and on the slit-shaped nanopores formed by minerals.

  9. Field theoretic approach to dynamical orbital localization in ab initio molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Thomas, Jordan W.; Iftimie, Radu; Tuckerman, Mark E.

    2004-01-01

    Techniques from gauge-field theory are employed to derive an alternative formulation of the Car-Parrinello ab initio molecular-dynamics method that allows maximally localized Wannier orbitals to be generated dynamically as the calculation proceeds. In particular, the Car-Parrinello Lagrangian is mapped onto an SU(n) non-Abelian gauge-field theory and the fictitious kinetic energy in the Car-Parrinello Lagrangian is modified to yield a fully gauge-invariant form. The Dirac gauge-fixing method is then employed to derive a set of equations of motion that automatically maintain orbital locality by restricting the orbitals to remain in the 'Wannier gauge'. An approximate algorithm for integrating the equations of motion that is stable and maintains orbital locality is then developed based on the exact equations of motion. It is shown in a realistic application (64 water molecules plus one hydrogen-chloride molecule in a periodic box) that orbital locality can be maintained with only a modest increase in CPU time. The ability to keep orbitals localized in an ab initio molecular-dynamics calculation is a crucial ingredient in the development of emerging linear scaling approaches

  10. Modeling and Proposed Molecular Mechanism of Hydroxyurea Through Docking and Molecular Dynamic Simulation to Curtail the Action of Ribonucleotide Reductase.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iman, Maryam; Khansefid, Zeynab; Davood, Asghar

    2016-01-01

    Ribonucleotide Reductase (RNR) is an important anticancer chemotherapy target. It has main key role in DNA synthesis and cell growth. Therefore several RNR inhibitors, such as hydroxyurea, have entered the clinical trials. Based on our proposed mechanism, radical site of RNR protein reacts with hydroxyurea in which hydroxyurea is converted into its oxidized form compound III, and whereby the tyrosyl radical is converted into a normal tyrosine residue. In this study, docking and molecular dynamics simulations were used for proposed molecular mechanism of hydroxyurea in RNR inhibition as anticancer agent. The binding affinity of hydroxyurea and compound III to RNR was studied by docking method. The docking study was performed for the crystal structure of human RNR with the radical scavenger Hydroxyurea and its oxidized form to inhibit the human RNR. hydroxyurea and compound III bind at the active site with Tyr-176, which are essential for free radical formation. This helps to understand the functional aspects and also aids in the development of novel inhibitors for the human RNR2. To confirm the binding mode of inhibitors, the molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed using GROMACS 4.5.5, based upon the docked conformation of inhibitors. Both of the studied compounds stayed in the active site. The results of MD simulations confirmed the binding mode of ligands, accuracy of docking and the reliability of active conformations which were obtained by AutoDock. MD studies confirm our proposed mechanism in which compound III reacts with the active site residues specially Tyr-176, and inhibits the radical generation and subsequently inhibits the RNR enzyme.

  11. The use of molecular dynamics for the thermodynamic properties of simple and transition metals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Straub, G.K.

    1987-04-01

    The technique of computer simulation of the molecular dynamics in metallic systems to calculate thermodynamic properties is discussed. The nature of a metal as determined by its electronic structure is used to determine the total adiabatic potential. The effective screened ion-ion interaction can then be used in a molecular dynamics simulation. The method for the construction of a molecular dynamics ensemble, its relation to the canonical ensemble, and the definition of thermodynamic functions from the Helmholtz free energy is given. The method for the analysis of the molecular dynamics results from quasiharmonic lattice dynamics and the decomposition in terms of harmonic and anharmonic contributions is given for solids. For fluid phase metals, procedures for calculating the thermodynamics and determining the constant of entropy are presented. The solid-fluid phase boundary as a function of pressure and temperature is determined using the results of molecular dynamics. Throughout, examples and results for metallic sodium are used. The treatment of the transition metal electronic d-states in terms of an effective pair-wise interaction is also discussed and the phonon dispersion curves of Al, Ni, and Cu are calculated

  12. Extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations of the shock-induced chemistry of phenylacetylene

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Cawkwell, M. J., E-mail: cawkwell@lanl.gov; Niklasson, Anders M. N. [Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States); Dattelbaum, Dana M. [Weapons Experiments Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)

    2015-02-14

    The initial chemical events that occur during the shock compression of liquid phenylacetylene have been investigated using self-consistent tight binding molecular dynamics simulations. The extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics formalism enabled us to compute microcanonical trajectories with precise conservation of the total energy. Our simulations revealed that the first density-increasing step under shock compression arises from the polymerization of phenylacetylene molecules at the acetylene moiety. The application of electronic structure-based molecular dynamics with long-term conservation of the total energy enabled us to identify electronic signatures of reactivity via monitoring changes in the HOMO-LUMO gap, and to capture directly adiabatic shock heating, transient non-equilibrium states, and changes in temperature arising from exothermic chemistry in classical molecular dynamics trajectories.

  13. Extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations of the shock-induced chemistry of phenylacetylene.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cawkwell, M J; Niklasson, Anders M N; Dattelbaum, Dana M

    2015-02-14

    The initial chemical events that occur during the shock compression of liquid phenylacetylene have been investigated using self-consistent tight binding molecular dynamics simulations. The extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics formalism enabled us to compute microcanonical trajectories with precise conservation of the total energy. Our simulations revealed that the first density-increasing step under shock compression arises from the polymerization of phenylacetylene molecules at the acetylene moiety. The application of electronic structure-based molecular dynamics with long-term conservation of the total energy enabled us to identify electronic signatures of reactivity via monitoring changes in the HOMO-LUMO gap, and to capture directly adiabatic shock heating, transient non-equilibrium states, and changes in temperature arising from exothermic chemistry in classical molecular dynamics trajectories.

  14. A MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS STUDY OF LECITHIN MONOLAYERS

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    AHLSTROM, P; BERENDSEN, HJC

    1993-01-01

    Two monolayers of didecanoyllecithin at the air-water interface have been studied using molecular dynamics simulations. The model system consisted of two monolayers of 42 lecithin molecules each separated by a roughly 4 nm thick slab of SPC water. The area per lecithin molecule was 0.78 nm(2)

  15. Short-time maximum entropy method analysis of molecular dynamics simulation: Unimolecular decomposition of formic acid

    Science.gov (United States)

    Takahashi, Osamu; Nomura, Tetsuo; Tabayashi, Kiyohiko; Yamasaki, Katsuyoshi

    2008-07-01

    We performed spectral analysis by using the maximum entropy method instead of the traditional Fourier transform technique to investigate the short-time behavior in molecular systems, such as the energy transfer between vibrational modes and chemical reactions. This procedure was applied to direct ab initio molecular dynamics calculations for the decomposition of formic acid. More reactive trajectories of dehydrolation than those of decarboxylation were obtained for Z-formic acid, which was consistent with the prediction of previous theoretical and experimental studies. Short-time maximum entropy method analyses were performed for typical reactive and non-reactive trajectories. Spectrograms of a reactive trajectory were obtained; these clearly showed the reactant, transient, and product regions, especially for the dehydrolation path.

  16. Maxwell–Stefan diffusion and dynamical correlation in molten LiF-KF: A molecular dynamics study

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jain, Richa Naja, E-mail: ltprichanaja@gmail.com; Chakraborty, Brahmananda; Ramaniah, Lavanya M. [High Pressure & Synchrotron Radiation Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai-85 (India)

    2016-05-23

    In this work our main objective is to compute Dynamical correlations, Onsager coefficients and Maxwell-Stefan (MS) diffusivities for molten salt LiF-KF mixture at various thermodynamic states through Green–Kubo formalism for the first time. The equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed using BHM potential for LiF–KF mixture. The velocity autocorrelations functions involving Li ions reflect the endurance of cage dynamics or backscattering with temperature. The magnitude of Onsager coefficients for all pairs increases with increase in temperature. Interestingly most of the Onsager coefficients has almost maximum magnitude at the eutectic composition indicating the most dynamic character of the eutectic mixture. MS diffusivity hence diffusion for all ion pairs increases in the system with increasing temperature. Smooth variation of the diffusivity values denies any network formation in the mixture. Also, the striking feature is the noticeable concentration dependence of MS diffusivity between cation-cation pair, Đ{sub Li-K} which remains negative for most of the concentration range but changes sign to become positive for higher LiF concentration. The negative MS diffusivity is acceptable as it satisfies the non-negative entropy constraint governed by 2{sup nd} law of thermodynamics. This high diffusivity also vouches the candidature of molten salt as a coolant.

  17. Correlations and symmetry of interactions influence collective dynamics of molecular motors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Celis-Garza, Daniel; Teimouri, Hamid; Kolomeisky, Anatoly B

    2015-01-01

    Enzymatic molecules that actively support many cellular processes, including transport, cell division and cell motility, are known as motor proteins or molecular motors. Experimental studies indicate that they interact with each other and they frequently work together in large groups. To understand the mechanisms of collective behavior of motor proteins we study the effect of interactions in the transport of molecular motors along linear filaments. It is done by analyzing a recently introduced class of totally asymmetric exclusion processes that takes into account the intermolecular interactions via thermodynamically consistent approach. We develop a new theoretical method that allows us to compute analytically all dynamic properties of the system. Our analysis shows that correlations play important role in dynamics of interacting molecular motors. Surprisingly, we find that the correlations for repulsive interactions are weaker and more short-range than the correlations for the attractive interactions. In addition, it is shown that symmetry of interactions affect dynamic properties of molecular motors. The implications of these findings for motor proteins transport are discussed. Our theoretical predictions are tested by extensive Monte Carlo computer simulations. (paper)

  18. Molecular dynamics simulation of impact test

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Akahoshi, Y.; Schmauder, S.; Ludwig, M.

    1998-01-01

    This paper describes an impact test by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to evaluate embrittlement of bcc Fe at different temperatures. A new impact test model is developed for MD simulation. The typical fracture behaviors show transition from brittle to ductile fracture, and a history of the impact loads also demonstrates its transition. We conclude that the impact test by MD could be feasible. (orig.)

  19. Molecular dynamics simulation of impact test

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Akahoshi, Y. [Kyushu Inst. of Tech., Kitakyushu, Fukuoka (Japan); Schmauder, S.; Ludwig, M. [Stuttgart Univ. (Germany). Staatliche Materialpruefungsanstalt

    1998-11-01

    This paper describes an impact test by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to evaluate embrittlement of bcc Fe at different temperatures. A new impact test model is developed for MD simulation. The typical fracture behaviors show transition from brittle to ductile fracture, and a history of the impact loads also demonstrates its transition. We conclude that the impact test by MD could be feasible. (orig.)

  20. Molecular dynamics study on glass and molten state of AgI-AgPO3

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matsunaga, Shigeki

    2017-08-01

    Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation on molten and glass state of AgI-AgPO3 have been performed to investigate the structural features and transport properties. In MD, the screened Born-Mayer type potentials including the effect of polarizability of ions have been used. The structure, conductivity, shear viscosity, and Voronoi polyhedron are discussed in relation with the temperature change.

  1. Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Salt Diffusion in Polyelectrolyte Assemblies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Ran; Duan, Xiaozheng; Ding, Mingming; Shi, Tongfei

    2018-06-05

    The diffusion of salt ions and charged probe molecules in polyelectrolyte assemblies is often assumed to follow a theoretical hopping model, in which the diffusing ion is hopping between charged sites of chains based on electroneutrality. However, experimental verification of diffusing pathway at such microscales is difficult, and the corresponding molecular mechanisms remain elusive. In this study, we perform all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of salt diffusion in polyelectrolyte (PE) assembly of poly (sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS) and poly (diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDAC). Besides the ion hopping mode, the diffusing trajectories are found presenting common features of a jump process, i.e., subjecting to PE relaxation, water pockets in the structure open and close, thus the ion can move from one pocket to another. Anomalous subdiffusion of ions and water is observed due to the trapping scenarios in these water pockets. The jump events are much rarer compared with ion hopping but significantly increases salt diffusion with increasing temperature. Our result strongly indicates that salt diffusion in hydrated PDAC/PSS is a combined process of ion hopping and jump motion. This provides new molecular explanation for the coupling of salt motion with chain motion and the nonlinear increase of salt diffusion at glass transition temperature.

  2. Mechanistic Insights into Radical-Mediated Oxidation of Tryptophan from ab Initio Quantum Chemistry Calculations and QM/MM Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wood, Geoffrey P F; Sreedhara, Alavattam; Moore, Jamie M; Wang, John; Trout, Bernhardt L

    2016-05-12

    An assessment of the mechanisms of (•)OH and (•)OOH radical-mediated oxidation of tryptophan was performed using density functional theory calculations and ab initio plane-wave Quantum Mechanics/Molecular Mechanics (QM/MM) molecular dynamics simulations. For the (•)OH reactions, addition to the pyrrole ring at position 2 is the most favored site with a barrierless reaction in the gas phase. The subsequent degradation of this adduct through a H atom transfer to water was intermittently observed in aqueous-phase molecular dynamics simulations. For the (•)OOH reactions, addition to the pyrrole ring at position 2 is the most favored pathway, in contrast to the situation in the model system ethylene, where concerted addition to the double bond is preferred. From the (•)OOH position 2 adduct QM/MM simulations show that formation of oxy-3-indolanaline occurs readily in an aqueous environment. The observed transformation starts from an initial rupture of the O-O bond followed by a H atom transfer with the accompanying loss of an (•)OH radical to solution. Finally, classical molecular dynamics simulations were performed to equate observed differential oxidation rates of various tryptophan residues in monoclonal antibody fragments. It was found that simple parameters derived from simulation correlate well with the experimental data.

  3. Rational design of methicillin resistance staphylococcus aureus inhibitors through 3D-QSAR, molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ballu, Srilata; Itteboina, Ramesh; Sivan, Sree Kanth; Manga, Vijjulatha

    2018-04-01

    Staphylococcus aureus is a gram positive bacterium. It is the leading cause of skin and respiratory infections, osteomyelitis, Ritter's disease, endocarditis, and bacteraemia in the developed world. We employed combined studies of 3D QSAR, molecular docking which are validated by molecular dynamics simulations and in silico ADME prediction have been performed on Isothiazoloquinolones inhibitors against methicillin resistance Staphylococcus aureus. Three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship (3D-QSAR) study was applied using comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA) with Q 2 of 0.578, R 2 of 0.988, and comparative molecular similarity indices analysis (CoMSIA) with Q 2 of 0.554, R 2 of 0.975. The predictive ability of these model was determined using a test set of molecules that gave acceptable predictive correlation (r 2 Pred) values 0.55 and 0.57 of CoMFA and CoMSIA respectively. Docking, simulations were employed to position the inhibitors into protein active site to find out the most probable binding mode and most reliable conformations. Developed models and Docking methods provide guidance to design molecules with enhanced activity. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Constant-pH molecular dynamics using stochastic titration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baptista, António M.; Teixeira, Vitor H.; Soares, Cláudio M.

    2002-09-01

    A new method is proposed for performing constant-pH molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, that is, MD simulations where pH is one of the external thermodynamic parameters, like the temperature or the pressure. The protonation state of each titrable site in the solute is allowed to change during a molecular mechanics (MM) MD simulation, the new states being obtained from a combination of continuum electrostatics (CE) calculations and Monte Carlo (MC) simulation of protonation equilibrium. The coupling between the MM/MD and CE/MC algorithms is done in a way that ensures a proper Markov chain, sampling from the intended semigrand canonical distribution. This stochastic titration method is applied to succinic acid, aimed at illustrating the method and examining the choice of its adjustable parameters. The complete titration of succinic acid, using constant-pH MD simulations at different pH values, gives a clear picture of the coupling between the trans/gauche isomerization and the protonation process, making it possible to reconcile some apparently contradictory results of previous studies. The present constant-pH MD method is shown to require a moderate increase of computational cost when compared to the usual MD method.

  5. Combined Molecular Dynamics Simulation-Molecular-Thermodynamic Theory Framework for Predicting Surface Tensions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sresht, Vishnu; Lewandowski, Eric P; Blankschtein, Daniel; Jusufi, Arben

    2017-08-22

    A molecular modeling approach is presented with a focus on quantitative predictions of the surface tension of aqueous surfactant solutions. The approach combines classical Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations with a molecular-thermodynamic theory (MTT) [ Y. J. Nikas, S. Puvvada, D. Blankschtein, Langmuir 1992 , 8 , 2680 ]. The MD component is used to calculate thermodynamic and molecular parameters that are needed in the MTT model to determine the surface tension isotherm. The MD/MTT approach provides the important link between the surfactant bulk concentration, the experimental control parameter, and the surfactant surface concentration, the MD control parameter. We demonstrate the capability of the MD/MTT modeling approach on nonionic alkyl polyethylene glycol surfactants at the air-water interface and observe reasonable agreement of the predicted surface tensions and the experimental surface tension data over a wide range of surfactant concentrations below the critical micelle concentration. Our modeling approach can be extended to ionic surfactants and their mixtures with both ionic and nonionic surfactants at liquid-liquid interfaces.

  6. Molecular dynamics simulation of a phospholipid membrane

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Egberts, Egbert; Marrink, Siewert-Jan; Berendsen, Herman J.C.

    We present the results of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of a phospholipid membrane in water, including full atomic detail. The goal of the simulations was twofold: first we wanted to set up a simulation system which is able to reproduce experimental results and can serve as a model membrane in

  7. Structural, dynamic, and vibrational properties during heat transfer in Si/Ge superlattices: A Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics study

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ji, Pengfei; Zhang, Yuwen, E-mail: zhangyu@missouri.edu [Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211 (United States); Yang, Mo [College of Energy and Power Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093 (China)

    2013-12-21

    The structural, dynamic, and vibrational properties during heat transfer process in Si/Ge superlattices are studied by analyzing the trajectories generated by the ab initio Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics simulation. The radial distribution functions and mean square displacements are calculated and further discussions are made to explain and probe the structural changes relating to the heat transfer phenomenon. Furthermore, the vibrational density of states of the two layers (Si/Ge) are computed and plotted to analyze the contributions of phonons with different frequencies to the heat conduction. Coherent heat conduction of the low frequency phonons is found and their contributions to facilitate heat transfer are confirmed. The Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics simulation outputs in the work show reasonable thermophysical results of the thermal energy transport process and shed light on the potential applications of treating the heat transfer in the superlattices of semiconductor materials from a quantum mechanical molecular dynamics simulation perspective.

  8. Structural, dynamic, and vibrational properties during heat transfer in Si/Ge superlattices: A Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ji, Pengfei; Zhang, Yuwen; Yang, Mo

    2013-01-01

    The structural, dynamic, and vibrational properties during heat transfer process in Si/Ge superlattices are studied by analyzing the trajectories generated by the ab initio Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics simulation. The radial distribution functions and mean square displacements are calculated and further discussions are made to explain and probe the structural changes relating to the heat transfer phenomenon. Furthermore, the vibrational density of states of the two layers (Si/Ge) are computed and plotted to analyze the contributions of phonons with different frequencies to the heat conduction. Coherent heat conduction of the low frequency phonons is found and their contributions to facilitate heat transfer are confirmed. The Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics simulation outputs in the work show reasonable thermophysical results of the thermal energy transport process and shed light on the potential applications of treating the heat transfer in the superlattices of semiconductor materials from a quantum mechanical molecular dynamics simulation perspective

  9. Structural, dynamic, and vibrational properties during heat transfer in Si/Ge superlattices: A Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ji, Pengfei; Zhang, Yuwen; Yang, Mo

    2013-12-01

    The structural, dynamic, and vibrational properties during heat transfer process in Si/Ge superlattices are studied by analyzing the trajectories generated by the ab initio Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics simulation. The radial distribution functions and mean square displacements are calculated and further discussions are made to explain and probe the structural changes relating to the heat transfer phenomenon. Furthermore, the vibrational density of states of the two layers (Si/Ge) are computed and plotted to analyze the contributions of phonons with different frequencies to the heat conduction. Coherent heat conduction of the low frequency phonons is found and their contributions to facilitate heat transfer are confirmed. The Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics simulation outputs in the work show reasonable thermophysical results of the thermal energy transport process and shed light on the potential applications of treating the heat transfer in the superlattices of semiconductor materials from a quantum mechanical molecular dynamics simulation perspective.

  10. MDGRAPE-4: a special-purpose computer system for molecular dynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ohmura, Itta; Morimoto, Gentaro; Ohno, Yousuke; Hasegawa, Aki; Taiji, Makoto

    2014-08-06

    We are developing the MDGRAPE-4, a special-purpose computer system for molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. MDGRAPE-4 is designed to achieve strong scalability for protein MD simulations through the integration of general-purpose cores, dedicated pipelines, memory banks and network interfaces (NIFs) to create a system on chip (SoC). Each SoC has 64 dedicated pipelines that are used for non-bonded force calculations and run at 0.8 GHz. Additionally, it has 65 Tensilica Xtensa LX cores with single-precision floating-point units that are used for other calculations and run at 0.6 GHz. At peak performance levels, each SoC can evaluate 51.2 G interactions per second. It also has 1.8 MB of embedded shared memory banks and six network units with a peak bandwidth of 7.2 GB s(-1) for the three-dimensional torus network. The system consists of 512 (8×8×8) SoCs in total, which are mounted on 64 node modules with eight SoCs. The optical transmitters/receivers are used for internode communication. The expected maximum power consumption is 50 kW. While MDGRAPE-4 software has still been improved, we plan to run MD simulations on MDGRAPE-4 in 2014. The MDGRAPE-4 system will enable long-time molecular dynamics simulations of small systems. It is also useful for multiscale molecular simulations where the particle simulation parts often become bottlenecks.

  11. Shapiro like steps reveals molecular nanomagnets’ spin dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Abdollahipour, Babak; Abouie, Jahanfar; Ebrahimi, Navid

    2015-01-01

    We present an accurate way to detect spin dynamics of a nutating molecular nanomagnet by inserting it in a tunnel Josephson junction and studying the current voltage (I-V) characteristic. The spin nutation of the molecular nanomagnet is generated by applying two circularly polarized magnetic fields. We demonstrate that modulation of the Josephson current by the nutation of the molecular nanomagnet’s spin appears as a stepwise structure like Shapiro steps in the I-V characteristic of the junction. Width and heights of these Shapiro-like steps are determined by two parameters of the spin nutation, frequency and amplitude of the nutation, which are simply tuned by the applied magnetic fields

  12. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest ligand's binding to nicotinamidase/pyrazinamidase.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ji-Long Zhang

    Full Text Available The research on the binding process of ligand to pyrazinamidase (PncA is crucial for elucidating the inherent relationship between resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and PncA's activity. In the present study, molecular dynamics (MD simulation methods were performed to investigate the unbinding process of nicotinamide (NAM from two PncA enzymes, which is the reverse of the corresponding binding process. The calculated potential of mean force (PMF based on the steered molecular dynamics (SMD simulations sheds light on an optimal binding/unbinding pathway of the ligand. The comparative analyses between two PncAs clearly exhibit the consistency of the binding/unbinding pathway in the two enzymes, implying the universality of the pathway in all kinds of PncAs. Several important residues dominating the pathway were also determined by the calculation of interaction energies. The structural change of the proteins induced by NAM's unbinding or binding shows the great extent interior motion in some homologous region adjacent to the active sites of the two PncAs. The structure comparison substantiates that this region should be very important for the ligand's binding in all PncAs. Additionally, MD simulations also show that the coordination position of the ligand is displaced by one water molecule in the unliganded enzymes. These results could provide the more penetrating understanding of drug resistance of M. tuberculosis and be helpful for the development of new antituberculosis drugs.

  13. Solvation of ions in the gas-phase: a molecular dynamics simulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cabarcos, Orlando M.; Lisy, James M.

    1996-07-01

    Molecular dynamics simulations have been performed on the collision between a cesium ion and a cluster of twenty methanol molecules. This process, generating a solvated ion, was studied over a range (1 to 25 eV) of eight collision energies. Preliminary analysis of this gas phase solvation has included the distribution of final ion cluster sizes, fragmentation patterns, solvation timescales and energetics. Two distinct patterns have emerged: a ballistic penetration of the neutral cluster at the higher collision energies and an evaporative evolution of the cluster ion at lower collision energies.

  14. Molecular dynamics simulation of AFM studies of a single polymer chain

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang Wenhai; Kistler, Kurt A.; Sadeghipour, Keya; Baran, George

    2008-01-01

    Single polymer chain force-extension behavior measured by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) was interpreted by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation performed by applying a bead-spring (coarse-graining) model in which the bond potential function between adjacent beads is described by a worm-like chain (WLC) model. Simulation results indicate that caution should be applied when interpreting experimental AFM data, because the data vary depending on the point of AFM tip-polymer chain attachment. This approach offers an effective way for eventual analysis of the mechanical behavior of complex polymer networks

  15. Molecular dynamics simulation of AFM studies of a single polymer chain

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wang Wenhai [Center for Bioengineering and Biomaterials, College of Engineering, Temple University, 1947 N. 12th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122 (United States); Kistler, Kurt A. [Department of Chemistry, Temple University, 1901 N. 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122 (United States); Sadeghipour, Keya [Center for Bioengineering and Biomaterials, College of Engineering, Temple University, 1947 N. 12th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122 (United States); Baran, George [Center for Bioengineering and Biomaterials, College of Engineering, Temple University, 1947 N. 12th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122 (United States)], E-mail: grbaran@temple.edu

    2008-11-24

    Single polymer chain force-extension behavior measured by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) was interpreted by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation performed by applying a bead-spring (coarse-graining) model in which the bond potential function between adjacent beads is described by a worm-like chain (WLC) model. Simulation results indicate that caution should be applied when interpreting experimental AFM data, because the data vary depending on the point of AFM tip-polymer chain attachment. This approach offers an effective way for eventual analysis of the mechanical behavior of complex polymer networks.

  16. Multiscale Modeling of Complex Molecular Structure and Dynamics with MBN Explorer

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Solov'yov, Ilia A.; Korol, Andrei V.; Solov'yov, Andrey V.

    -up of input files, controls the simulations, and supports the subsequent visualization and analysis of the results obtained. The book subsequently provides a systematic description of the capabilities of this universal and powerful software package within the framework of computational molecular science...... of molecular and random walk dynamics. The package allows the use of a broad variety of interatomic potentials and can, e.g., be configured to select any subset of a molecular system as rigid fragments, whenever a significant reduction in the number of dynamical degrees of freedom is required for computational...... practicalities. MBN Studio enables users to easily construct initial geometries for the molecular, liquid, crystalline, gaseous and hybrid systems that serve as input for the subsequent simulations of their physical and chemical properties using MBN Explorer. Despite its universality, the computational...

  17. Extended Lagrangian formulation of charge-constrained tight-binding molecular dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cawkwell, M J; Coe, J D; Yadav, S K; Liu, X-Y; Niklasson, A M N

    2015-06-09

    The extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics formalism [Niklasson, Phys. Rev. Lett., 2008, 100, 123004] has been applied to a tight-binding model under the constraint of local charge neutrality to yield microcanonical trajectories with both precise, long-term energy conservation and a reduced number of self-consistent field optimizations at each time step. The extended Lagrangian molecular dynamics formalism restores time reversal symmetry in the propagation of the electronic degrees of freedom, and it enables the efficient and accurate self-consistent optimization of the chemical potential and atomwise potential energy shifts in the on-site elements of the tight-binding Hamiltonian that are required when enforcing local charge neutrality. These capabilities are illustrated with microcanonical molecular dynamics simulations of a small metallic cluster using an sd-valent tight-binding model for titanium. The effects of weak dissipation on the propagation of the auxiliary degrees of freedom for the chemical potential and on-site Hamiltonian matrix elements that is used to counteract the accumulation of numerical noise during trajectories was also investigated.

  18. Molecular determinants of epidermal growth factor binding: a molecular dynamics study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jeffrey M Sanders

    Full Text Available The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR is a member of the receptor tyrosine kinase family that plays a role in multiple cellular processes. Activation of EGFR requires binding of a ligand on the extracellular domain to promote conformational changes leading to dimerization and transphosphorylation of intracellular kinase domains. Seven ligands are known to bind EGFR with affinities ranging from sub-nanomolar to near micromolar dissociation constants. In the case of EGFR, distinct conformational states assumed upon binding a ligand is thought to be a determining factor in activation of a downstream signaling network. Previous biochemical studies suggest the existence of both low affinity and high affinity EGFR ligands. While these studies have identified functional effects of ligand binding, high-resolution structural data are lacking. To gain a better understanding of the molecular basis of EGFR binding affinities, we docked each EGFR ligand to the putative active state extracellular domain dimer and 25.0 ns molecular dynamics simulations were performed. MM-PBSA/GBSA are efficient computational approaches to approximate free energies of protein-protein interactions and decompose the free energy at the amino acid level. We applied these methods to the last 6.0 ns of each ligand-receptor simulation. MM-PBSA calculations were able to successfully rank all seven of the EGFR ligands based on the two affinity classes: EGF>HB-EGF>TGF-α>BTC>EPR>EPG>AR. Results from energy decomposition identified several interactions that are common among binding ligands. These findings reveal that while several residues are conserved among the EGFR ligand family, no single set of residues determines the affinity class. Instead we found heterogeneous sets of interactions that were driven primarily by electrostatic and Van der Waals forces. These results not only illustrate the complexity of EGFR dynamics but also pave the way for structure-based design of

  19. Electron-nuclear corellations for photoinduced dynamics in molecular dimers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kilin, Dmitri S.; Pereversev, Yuryi V.; Prezhdo, Oleg V.

    2003-03-01

    Ultrafast photoinduced dynamics of electronic excitation in molecular dimers is drastically affected by dynamic reorganization of of inter- and intra- molecular nuclear configuration modelled by quantized nuclear degree of freedom [1]. The dynamics of the electronic population and nuclear coherence is analyzed with help of both numerical solution of the chain of coupled differential equations for mean coordinate, population inversion, electronic-vibrational correlation etc.[2] and by propagating the Gaussian wavepackets in relevant adiabatic potentials. Intriguing results were obtained in the approximation of small energy difference and small change of nuclear equilibrium configuration for excited electronic states. In the limiting case of resonance between electronic states energy difference and frequency of the nuclear mode these results have been justified by comparison to exactly solvable Jaynes-Cummings model. It has been found that the photoinduced processes in dimer are arranged according to their time scales:(i) fast scale of nuclear motion,(ii) intermediate scale of dynamical redistribution of electronic population between excited states as well as growth and dynamics of electronic -nuclear correlation,(iii) slow scale of electronic population approaching to the quasiequilibrium distribution, decay of electronic-nuclear correlation, and diminishing the amplitude of mean coordinate oscillations, accompanied by essential growth of the nuclear coordinate dispersion associated with the overall nuclear wavepacket width. Demonstrated quantum-relaxational features of photoinduced vibronic dinamical processess in molecular dimers are obtained by simple method, applicable to large biological systems with many degrees of freedom. [1] J. A. Cina, D. S. Kilin, T. S. Humble, J. Chem. Phys. (2003) in press. [2] O. V. Prezhdo, J. Chem. Phys. 117, 2995 (2002).

  20. High Performance Molecular Visualization: In-Situ and Parallel Rendering with EGL

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stone, John E.; Messmer, Peter; Sisneros, Robert; Schulten, Klaus

    2016-01-01

    Large scale molecular dynamics simulations produce terabytes of data that is impractical to transfer to remote facilities. It is therefore necessary to perform visualization tasks in-situ as the data are generated, or by running interactive remote visualization sessions and batch analyses co-located with direct access to high performance storage systems. A significant challenge for deploying visualization software within clouds, clusters, and supercomputers involves the operating system software required to initialize and manage graphics acceleration hardware. Recently, it has become possible for applications to use the Embedded-system Graphics Library (EGL) to eliminate the requirement for windowing system software on compute nodes, thereby eliminating a significant obstacle to broader use of high performance visualization applications. We outline the potential benefits of this approach in the context of visualization applications used in the cloud, on commodity clusters, and supercomputers. We discuss the implementation of EGL support in VMD, a widely used molecular visualization application, and we outline benefits of the approach for molecular visualization tasks on petascale computers, clouds, and remote visualization servers. We then provide a brief evaluation of the use of EGL in VMD, with tests using developmental graphics drivers on conventional workstations and on Amazon EC2 G2 GPU-accelerated cloud instance types. We expect that the techniques described here will be of broad benefit to many other visualization applications. PMID:27747137

  1. Water around fullerene shape amphiphiles: A molecular dynamics simulation study of hydrophobic hydration

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Varanasi, S. R., E-mail: s.raovaranasi@uq.edu.au, E-mail: guskova@ipfdd.de; John, A. [Institut Theorie der Polymere, Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e.V., Hohe Straße 6, Dresden D-01069 (Germany); Guskova, O. A., E-mail: s.raovaranasi@uq.edu.au, E-mail: guskova@ipfdd.de [Institut Theorie der Polymere, Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e.V., Hohe Straße 6, Dresden D-01069 (Germany); Dresden Center for Computational Materials Science (DCMS), Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden D-01069 (Germany); Sommer, J.-U. [Institut Theorie der Polymere, Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e.V., Hohe Straße 6, Dresden D-01069 (Germany); Dresden Center for Computational Materials Science (DCMS), Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden D-01069 (Germany); Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Dresden, Zellescher Weg 17, Dresden D-01069 (Germany)

    2015-06-14

    Fullerene C{sub 60} sub-colloidal particle with diameter ∼1 nm represents a boundary case between small and large hydrophobic solutes on the length scale of hydrophobic hydration. In the present paper, a molecular dynamics simulation is performed to investigate this complex phenomenon for bare C{sub 60} fullerene and its amphiphilic/charged derivatives, so called shape amphiphiles. Since most of the unique properties of water originate from the pattern of hydrogen bond network and its dynamics, spatial, and orientational aspects of water in solvation shells around the solute surface having hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions are analyzed. Dynamical properties such as translational-rotational mobility, reorientational correlation and occupation time correlation functions of water molecules, and diffusion coefficients are also calculated. Slower dynamics of solvent molecules—water retardation—in the vicinity of the solutes is observed. Both the topological properties of hydrogen bond pattern and the “dangling” –OH groups that represent surface defects in water network are monitored. The fraction of such defect structures is increased near the hydrophobic cap of fullerenes. Some “dry” regions of C{sub 60} are observed which can be considered as signatures of surface dewetting. In an effort to provide molecular level insight into the thermodynamics of hydration, the free energy of solvation is determined for a family of fullerene particles using thermodynamic integration technique.

  2. Water around fullerene shape amphiphiles: A molecular dynamics simulation study of hydrophobic hydration

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Varanasi, S. R.; John, A.; Guskova, O. A.; Sommer, J.-U.

    2015-01-01

    Fullerene C 60 sub-colloidal particle with diameter ∼1 nm represents a boundary case between small and large hydrophobic solutes on the length scale of hydrophobic hydration. In the present paper, a molecular dynamics simulation is performed to investigate this complex phenomenon for bare C 60 fullerene and its amphiphilic/charged derivatives, so called shape amphiphiles. Since most of the unique properties of water originate from the pattern of hydrogen bond network and its dynamics, spatial, and orientational aspects of water in solvation shells around the solute surface having hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions are analyzed. Dynamical properties such as translational-rotational mobility, reorientational correlation and occupation time correlation functions of water molecules, and diffusion coefficients are also calculated. Slower dynamics of solvent molecules—water retardation—in the vicinity of the solutes is observed. Both the topological properties of hydrogen bond pattern and the “dangling” –OH groups that represent surface defects in water network are monitored. The fraction of such defect structures is increased near the hydrophobic cap of fullerenes. Some “dry” regions of C 60 are observed which can be considered as signatures of surface dewetting. In an effort to provide molecular level insight into the thermodynamics of hydration, the free energy of solvation is determined for a family of fullerene particles using thermodynamic integration technique

  3. Peptide dynamics by molecular dynamics simulation and diffusion theory method with improved basis sets

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hsu, Po Jen; Lai, S. K., E-mail: sklai@coll.phy.ncu.edu.tw [Complex Liquids Laboratory, Department of Physics, National Central University, Chungli 320, Taiwan and Molecular Science and Technology Program, Taiwan International Graduate Program, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan (China); Rapallo, Arnaldo [Istituto per lo Studio delle Macromolecole (ISMAC) Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), via E. Bassini 15, C.A.P 20133 Milano (Italy)

    2014-03-14

    solvent, we performed in this work the classical molecular dynamics simulation on a realistic model solution with the peptide embedded in an explicit water environment, and calculated its dynamic properties both as an outcome of the simulations, and by the diffusion theory in reduced statistical-mechanical approach within HBA on the premise that the mode-coupling approach to the diffusion theory can give both the long-range and local dynamics starting from equilibrium averages which were obtained from detailed atomistic simulations.

  4. Peptide dynamics by molecular dynamics simulation and diffusion theory method with improved basis sets

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hsu, Po Jen; Lai, S. K.; Rapallo, Arnaldo

    2014-01-01

    solvent, we performed in this work the classical molecular dynamics simulation on a realistic model solution with the peptide embedded in an explicit water environment, and calculated its dynamic properties both as an outcome of the simulations, and by the diffusion theory in reduced statistical-mechanical approach within HBA on the premise that the mode-coupling approach to the diffusion theory can give both the long-range and local dynamics starting from equilibrium averages which were obtained from detailed atomistic simulations

  5. The MOLDY short-range molecular dynamics package

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ackland, G. J.; D'Mellow, K.; Daraszewicz, S. L.; Hepburn, D. J.; Uhrin, M.; Stratford, K.

    2011-12-01

    We describe a parallelised version of the MOLDY molecular dynamics program. This Fortran code is aimed at systems which may be described by short-range potentials and specifically those which may be addressed with the embedded atom method. This includes a wide range of transition metals and alloys. MOLDY provides a range of options in terms of the molecular dynamics ensemble used and the boundary conditions which may be applied. A number of standard potentials are provided, and the modular structure of the code allows new potentials to be added easily. The code is parallelised using OpenMP and can therefore be run on shared memory systems, including modern multicore processors. Particular attention is paid to the updates required in the main force loop, where synchronisation is often required in OpenMP implementations of molecular dynamics. We examine the performance of the parallel code in detail and give some examples of applications to realistic problems, including the dynamic compression of copper and carbon migration in an iron-carbon alloy. Program summaryProgram title: MOLDY Catalogue identifier: AEJU_v1_0 Program summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/AEJU_v1_0.html Program obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University, Belfast, N. Ireland Licensing provisions: GNU General Public License version 2 No. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 382 881 No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 6 705 242 Distribution format: tar.gz Programming language: Fortran 95/OpenMP Computer: Any Operating system: Any Has the code been vectorised or parallelized?: Yes. OpenMP is required for parallel execution RAM: 100 MB or more Classification: 7.7 Nature of problem: Moldy addresses the problem of many atoms (of order 10 6) interacting via a classical interatomic potential on a timescale of microseconds. It is designed for problems where statistics must be gathered over a number of equivalent runs, such as

  6. Vectorization, parallelization and implementation of Quantum molecular dynamics codes (QQQF, MONTEV)

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kato, Kaori [High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, Tsukuba, Ibaraki (Japan); Kunugi, Tomoaki; Kotake, Susumu; Shibahara, Masahiko

    1998-03-01

    This report describes parallelization, vectorization and implementation for two simulation codes, Quantum molecular dynamics simulation code QQQF and Photon montecalro molecular dynamics simulation code MONTEV, that have been developed for the analysis of the thermalization of photon energies in the molecule or materials. QQQF has been vectorized and parallelized on Fujitsu VPP and has been implemented from VPP to Intel Paragon XP/S and parallelized. MONTEV has been implemented from VPP to Paragon and parallelized. (author)

  7. Quantum wavepacket ab initio molecular dynamics: an approach for computing dynamically averaged vibrational spectra including critical nuclear quantum effects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sumner, Isaiah; Iyengar, Srinivasan S

    2007-10-18

    We have introduced a computational methodology to study vibrational spectroscopy in clusters inclusive of critical nuclear quantum effects. This approach is based on the recently developed quantum wavepacket ab initio molecular dynamics method that combines quantum wavepacket dynamics with ab initio molecular dynamics. The computational efficiency of the dynamical procedure is drastically improved (by several orders of magnitude) through the utilization of wavelet-based techniques combined with the previously introduced time-dependent deterministic sampling procedure measure to achieve stable, picosecond length, quantum-classical dynamics of electrons and nuclei in clusters. The dynamical information is employed to construct a novel cumulative flux/velocity correlation function, where the wavepacket flux from the quantized particle is combined with classical nuclear velocities to obtain the vibrational density of states. The approach is demonstrated by computing the vibrational density of states of [Cl-H-Cl]-, inclusive of critical quantum nuclear effects, and our results are in good agreement with experiment. A general hierarchical procedure is also provided, based on electronic structure harmonic frequencies, classical ab initio molecular dynamics, computation of nuclear quantum-mechanical eigenstates, and employing quantum wavepacket ab initio dynamics to understand vibrational spectroscopy in hydrogen-bonded clusters that display large degrees of anharmonicities.

  8. Effect of surface hydrophobicity on the dynamics of water at the nanoscale confinement: A molecular dynamics simulation study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Choudhury, Niharendu

    2013-01-01

    Highlights: • We present atomistic MD simulation of water confined between two paraffin-like plates. • Effect of plate hydrophobicity on the confined water dynamics is investigated. • Diffusivity of confined water is calculated from mean squared displacements. • Rotational dynamics of the confined water has bimodal nature of relaxation. • Monotonic dependence of translational and rotational dynamics on hydrophobicity. - Abstract: We present detailed molecular dynamics simulations of water in and around a pair of plates immersed in water to investigate the effect of degree of hydrophobicity or hydrophilicity of the plates on dynamics of water confined between the two plates. The nature of the plate has been tuned from hydrophobic to hydrophilic and vice versa by varying plate-water dispersion interaction. Analyses of the translational dynamics as performed by calculating mean squared displacements of the confined water reveal a monotonically decreasing trend of the diffusivity with increasing hydrophilicity of the plates. Orientational dynamics of the confined water also follows the same monotonic trend. Although orientational time constant almost does not change with the increase of plate-water dispersion interaction in the hydrophobic regime corresponding to the smaller plate-water attraction, it changes considerably in the hydrophilic regime corresponding to larger plate-water dispersion interactions

  9. DYNAMIC SURFACE BOUNDARY-CONDITIONS - A SIMPLE BOUNDARY MODEL FOR MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS SIMULATIONS

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    JUFFER, AH; BERENDSEN, HJC

    1993-01-01

    A simple model for the treatment of boundaries in molecular dynamics simulations is presented. The method involves the positioning of boundary atoms on a surface that surrounds a system of interest. The boundary atoms interact with the inner region and represent the effect of atoms outside the

  10. Molecular dynamics simulations and quantum chemical calculations ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Molecular dynamic simulation results indicate that the imidazoline derivative molecules uses the imidazoline ring to effectively adsorb on the surface of iron, with the alkyl hydrophobic tail forming an n shape (canopy like covering) at geometry optimization and at 353 K. The n shape canopy like covering to a large extent may ...

  11. Molecular dynamics simulations from putative transition states of alpha-spectrin SH3 domain

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Periole, Xavier; Vendruscolo, Michele; Mark, Alan E.

    2007-01-01

    A series of molecular dynamics simulations in explicit solvent were started from nine structural models of the transition state of the SH3 domain of alpha-spectrin, which were generated by Lindorff Larsen et al. (Nat Struct Mol Biol 2004;11:443-449) using molecular dynamics simulations in which

  12. Droplet spreading driven by van der Waals force: a molecular dynamics study

    KAUST Repository

    Wu, Congmin

    2010-07-07

    The dynamics of droplet spreading is investigated by molecular dynamics simulations for two immiscible fluids of equal density and viscosity. All the molecular interactions are modeled by truncated Lennard-Jones potentials and a long-range van der Waals force is introduced to act on the wetting fluid. By gradually increasing the coupling constant in the attractive van der Waals interaction between the wetting fluid and the substrate, we observe a transition in the initial stage of spreading. There exists a critical value of the coupling constant, above which the spreading is pioneered by a precursor film. In particular, the dynamically determined critical value quantitatively agrees with that determined by the energy criterion that the spreading coefficient equals zero. The latter separates partial wetting from complete wetting. In the regime of complete wetting, the radius of the spreading droplet varies with time as R(t) ∼ √t, a behavior also found in molecular dynamics simulations where the wetting dynamics is driven by the short-range Lennard-Jones interaction between liquid and solid. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd.

  13. Molecular dynamics simulations of melting behavior of alkane as phase change materials slurry

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rao Zhonghao; Wang Shuangfeng; Wu Maochun; Zhang Yanlai; Li Fuhuo

    2012-01-01

    Highlights: ► The melting behavior of phase change materials slurry was investigated by molecular dynamics simulation method. ► Four different PCM slurry systems including pure water and water/n-nonadecane composite were constructed. ► Amorphous structure and periodic boundary conditions were used in the molecular dynamics simulations. ► The simulated melting temperatures are very close to the published experimental values. - Abstract: The alkane based phase change materials slurry, with high latent heat storage capacity, is effective to enhance the heat transfer rate of traditional fluid. In this paper, the melting behavior of composite phase change materials slurry which consists of n-nonadecane and water was investigated by using molecular dynamics simulation. Four different systems including pure water and water/n-nonadecane composite were constructed with amorphous structure and periodic boundary conditions. The results showed that the simulated density and melting temperature were very close to the published experimental values. Mixing the n-nonadecane into water decreased the mobility but increased the energy storage capacity of composite systems. To describe the melting behavior of alkane based phase change materials slurry on molecular or atomic scale, molecular dynamics simulation is an effective method.

  14. Magnetic nanoparticles in fluid environment: combining molecular dynamics and Lattice-Boltzmann

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Melenev, Petr, E-mail: melenev@icmm.ru [Ural Federal University, 4, Turgeneva str., 620000 Ekaterinburg (Russian Federation); Institute of Continuous Media Mechanics, 1, Koroleva str., 614013 Perm (Russian Federation)

    2017-06-01

    Hydrodynamic interactions between magnetic nanoparticles suspended in the Newtonian liquid are accounted for using a combination of the lattice Boltzmann method and molecular dynamics simulations. Nanoparticle is modelled by the system of molecular dynamics material points (which form structure resembles raspberry) coupled to the lattice Boltzmann fluid. The hydrodynamic coupling between the colloids is studied by simulations of the thermo-induced rotational diffusion of two raspberry objects. It was found that for the considered range of model parameters the approaching of the raspberries leads to slight retard of the relaxation process. The presence of the weak magnetic dipolar interaction between the objects leads to modest decrease of the relaxation time and the extent of the acceleration of the diffusion is intensified along with magnetic forces. - Highlights: • The combination of molecular dynamics and lattice Boltzmann method is utilized for the reveal of the role of hydrodynamic interaction in rotational dynamics of colloid particles. • The verification of the model parameters is done based on the comparison with the results of Langevin dynamics. • For the task of free rotational diffusion of the pair of colloid particles the influence of the hydrodynamic interactions on the relaxation time is examined in the case of nonmagnetic particles and at the presence of weak dipolar interaction.

  15. Docking and molecular dynamics studies of peripheral site ligand–oximes as reactivators of sarin-inhibited human acetylcholinesterase

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Almeida, J.S.F.D. de; Cuya Guizado, T.R.; Guimarães, A.P.; Ramalho, T.C.; Gonçalves, A.S.; Koning, M.C. de; França, T.C.C.

    2016-01-01

    In the present work, we performed docking and molecular dynamics simulations studies on two groups of long-tailored oximes designed as peripheral site binders of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and potential penetrators on the blood brain barrier. Our studies permitted to determine how the tails anchor

  16. Microsecond atomic-scale molecular dynamics simulations of polyimides

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lyulin, S.V.; Gurtovenko, A.A.; Larin, S.V.; Nazarychev, V.M.; Lyulin, A.V.

    2013-01-01

    We employ microsecond atomic-scale molecular dynamics simulations to get insight into the structural and thermal properties of heat-resistant bulk polyimides. As electrostatic interactions are essential for the polyimides considered, we propose a two-step equilibration protocol that includes long

  17. Emulating Molecular Orbitals and Electronic Dynamics with Ultracold Atoms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dirk-Sören Lühmann

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, ultracold atoms in optical lattices have proven their great value as quantum simulators for studying strongly correlated phases and complex phenomena in solid-state systems. Here, we reveal their potential as quantum simulators for molecular physics and propose a technique to image the three-dimensional molecular orbitals with high resolution. The outstanding tunability of ultracold atoms in terms of potential and interaction offer fully adjustable model systems for gaining deep insight into the electronic structure of molecules. We study the orbitals of an artificial benzene molecule and discuss the effect of tunable interactions in its conjugated π electron system with special regard to localization and spin order. The dynamical time scales of ultracold atom simulators are on the order of milliseconds, which allows for the time-resolved monitoring of a broad range of dynamical processes. As an example, we compute the hole dynamics in the conjugated π system of the artificial benzene molecule.

  18. Moving contact lines: linking molecular dynamics and continuum-scale modelling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Edward R; Theodorakis, Panagiotis E; Craster, Richard V; Matar, Omar K

    2018-05-04

    Despite decades of research, the modelling of moving contact lines has remained a formidable challenge in fluid dynamics whose resolution will impact numerous industrial, biological, and daily-life applications. On the one hand, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation has the ability to provide unique insight into the microscopic details that determine the dynamic behavior of the contact line, which is not possible with either continuum-scale simulations or experiments. On the other hand, continuum-based models provide the link to the macroscopic description of the system. In this Feature Article, we explore the complex range of physical factors, including the presence of surfactants, which govern the contact line motion through MD simulations. We also discuss links between continuum- and molecular-scale modelling, and highlight the opportunities for future developments in this area.

  19. Dynamic combinatorial libraries: from exploring molecular recognition to systems chemistry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Jianwei; Nowak, Piotr; Otto, Sijbren

    2013-06-26

    Dynamic combinatorial chemistry (DCC) is a subset of combinatorial chemistry where the library members interconvert continuously by exchanging building blocks with each other. Dynamic combinatorial libraries (DCLs) are powerful tools for discovering the unexpected and have given rise to many fascinating molecules, ranging from interlocked structures to self-replicators. Furthermore, dynamic combinatorial molecular networks can produce emergent properties at systems level, which provide exciting new opportunities in systems chemistry. In this perspective we will highlight some new methodologies in this field and analyze selected examples of DCLs that are under thermodynamic control, leading to synthetic receptors, catalytic systems, and complex self-assembled supramolecular architectures. Also reviewed are extensions of the principles of DCC to systems that are not at equilibrium and may therefore harbor richer functional behavior. Examples include self-replication and molecular machines.

  20. Estimation of flow stress of radiation induced F/M steels using molecular dynamics and discrete dislocation dynamics approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    More, Ameya; Dutta, B.K.; Durgaprasad, P.V.; Arya, A.K.

    2012-01-01

    Fe-Cr based Ferritic/Martensitic (F/M) steels are the candidate structural materials for future fusion reactors. In this work, a multi-scale approach comprising atomistic Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations and Discrete Dislocation Dynamics (DDD) simulations are used to model the effect of irradiation dose on the flow stress of F/M steels. At the atomic scale, molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the dislocation interaction with irradiation induced defects, i.e. voids and He bubbles. Whereas, the DDD simulations are used to estimate the change in flow stress of the material as a result of irradiation hardening. (author)

  1. Molecular dynamics studies of superionic conductors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rahman, A.; Vashishta, P.

    1983-01-01

    Structural and dynamical properties of superionic conductors AgI and CuI are studied using molecular dynamics (MD) techniques. The model of these superionic conductors is based on the use of effective pair potentials. To determine the constants in these potentials, cohesive energy and bulk modulus are used as input: in addition one uses notions of ionic size based on the known crystal structure. Salient features of the MD technique are outlined. Methods of treating long range Coulomb forces are discussed in detail. This includes the manner of doing Ewald sum for MD cells of arbitrary shape. Features that can be incorporated to expedite the MD calculations are also discussed. A novel MD technique which allows for a dynamically controlled variation of the shape and size of the MD cell is described briefly. The development of this novel technique has made it possible to study structural phase transitions in superionic conductors. 68 references, 17 figures, 2 tables

  2. Investigation of arc repressor DNA-binding specificity by comparative molecular dynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Wei; Guo, Jun-Tao

    2015-01-01

    Transcription factors regulate gene expression through binding to specific DNA sequences. How transcription factors achieve high binding specificity is still not well understood. In this paper, we investigated the role of protein flexibility in protein-DNA-binding specificity by comparative molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Protein flexibility has been considered as a key factor in molecular recognition, which is intrinsically a dynamic process involving fine structural fitting between binding components. In this study, we performed comparative MD simulations on wild-type and F10V mutant P22 Arc repressor in both free and complex conformations. The F10V mutant has lower DNA-binding specificity though both the bound and unbound main-chain structures between the wild-type and F10V mutant Arc are highly similar. We found that the DNA-binding motif of wild-type Arc is structurally more flexible than the F10V mutant in the unbound state, especially for the six DNA base-contacting residues in each dimer. We demonstrated that the flexible side chains of wild-type Arc lead to a higher DNA-binding specificity through forming more hydrogen bonds with DNA bases upon binding. Our simulations also showed a possible conformational selection mechanism for Arc-DNA binding. These results indicate the important roles of protein flexibility and dynamic properties in protein-DNA-binding specificity.

  3. The effect of glycosylation on the transferrin structure: A molecular dynamic simulation analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghanbari, Z; Housaindokht, M R; Bozorgmehr, M R; Izadyar, M

    2016-09-07

    Transferrins have been defined by the highly cooperative binding of iron and a carbonate anion to form a Fe-CO3-Tf ternary complex. As such, the layout of the binding site residues affects transferrin function significantly; In contrast to N-lobe, C-lobe binding site of the transferrin structure has been less characterized and little research which surveyed the interaction of carbonate with transferrin in the C-lobe binding site has been found. In the present work, molecular dynamic simulation was employed to gain access into the molecular level understanding of carbonate binding site and their interactions in each lobe. Residues responsible for carbonate binding of transferrin structure were pointed out. In addition, native human transferrin is a glycoprotein that two N-linked complex glycan chains located in the C-lobe. Usually, in the molecular dynamic simulation for simplifying, glycan is removed from the protein structure. Here, we explore the effect of glycosylation on the transferrin structure. Glycosylation appears to have an effect on the layout of the binding site residue and transferrin structure. On the other hand, sometimes the entire transferrin formed by separated lobes that it allows the results to be interpreted in a straightforward manner rather than more parameters required for full length protein. But, it should be noted that there are differences between the separated lobe and full length transferrin, hence, a comparative analysis by the molecular dynamic simulation was performed to investigate such structural variations. Results revealed that separation in C-lobe caused a significant structural variation in comparison to N-lobe. Consequently, the separated lobes and the full length one are different, showing the importance of the interlobe communication and the impact of the lobes on each other in the transferrin structure. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics theory, algorithms and applications

    CERN Document Server

    Todd, Billy D

    2017-01-01

    Written by two specialists with over twenty-five years of experience in the field, this valuable text presents a wide range of topics within the growing field of nonequilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD). It introduces theories which are fundamental to the field - namely, nonequilibrium statistical mechanics and nonequilibrium thermodynamics - and provides state-of-the-art algorithms and advice for designing reliable NEMD code, as well as examining applications for both atomic and molecular fluids. It discusses homogenous and inhomogenous flows and pays considerable attention to highly confined fluids, such as nanofluidics. In addition to statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, the book covers the themes of temperature and thermodynamic fluxes and their computation, the theory and algorithms for homogenous shear and elongational flows, response theory and its applications, heat and mass transport algorithms, applications in molecular rheology, highly confined fluids (nanofluidics), the phenomenon of slip and...

  5. Molecular dynamics simulation of the formation, structure, and dynamics of small phospholipid vesicles

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Marrink, SJ; Mark, AE

    2003-01-01

    Here, we use coarse grained molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to study the spontaneous aggregation of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) lipids into small unilamellar vesicles. We show that the aggregation process occurs on a nanosecond time scale, with bicelles and cuplike vesicles formed at

  6. Pressure-area isotherm of a lipid monolayer from molecular dynamics simulations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Baoukina, Svetlana; Monticelli, Luca; Marrink, Siewert J.; Tieleman, D. Peter

    2007-01-01

    We calculated the pressure-area isotherm of a dipalmitoyl-phosphatidylcholine (DPPC) lipid monolayer from molecular dynamics simulations using a coarse-grained molecular model. We characterized the monolayer structure, geometry, and phases directly from the simulations and compared the calculated

  7. Quantum molecular dynamics study of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Michielsen, Kristel; Raedt, Hans De

    A quantum molecular dynamics technique is presented to compute the static and dynamic properties of a system of fermions coupled to classical degrees of freedom. The method is employed to investigate the properties of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, an electron-phonon model which is often used to

  8. A comparative molecular dynamics study of diffusion of n-decane ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Administrator

    Abstract. Molecular dynamics simulations are reported on the structure and dynamics of n-decane and. 3-methylpentane in zeolite NaY. We have calculated several properties such as the center of mass-center of mass rdf, the end-end distance distribution, bond angle distribution and dihedral angle distribution. We.

  9. Molecular Interactions and Reaction Dynamics in Supercritical Water Oxidation

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Johnston, K

    1998-01-01

    .... From UV-vis spectroscopic measurements and molecular dynamics simulation of chemical equilibria, we have shown that density effects on broad classes of reactions may be explained in terms of changes...

  10. Friction in Carborane-Based Molecular Rotors Driven by Gas Flow or Electric Field: Classical Molecular Dynamics

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Prokop, Alexandr; Vacek, Jaroslav; Michl, Josef

    2012-01-01

    Roč. 6, č. 3 (2012), s. 1901-1914 ISSN 1936-0851 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA203/09/1802; GA MŠk ME09020 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z40550506 Keywords : molecular rotors * molecular dynamics * potential energy barriers * friction * intramolecular vibrational redistribution Subject RIV: CC - Organic Chemistry Impact factor: 12.062, year: 2012

  11. Conformational analysis of oligosaccharides and polysaccharides using molecular dynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frank, Martin

    2015-01-01

    Complex carbohydrates usually have a large number of rotatable bonds and consequently a large number of theoretically possible conformations can be generated (combinatorial explosion). The application of systematic search methods for conformational analysis of carbohydrates is therefore limited to disaccharides and trisaccharides in a routine analysis. An alternative approach is to use Monte-Carlo methods or (high-temperature) molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to explore the conformational space of complex carbohydrates. This chapter describes how to use MD simulation data to perform a conformational analysis (conformational maps, hydrogen bonds) of oligosaccharides and how to build realistic 3D structures of large polysaccharides using Conformational Analysis Tools (CAT).

  12. Characterization of the conformational space of a triple-stranded beta-sheet forming peptide with molecular dynamics simulations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Soto, P; Colombo, G

    2004-01-01

    Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have been performed on a series of mutants of the 20 amino acid peptide Betanova in order to critically assess the ability of MD simulations to reproduce the folding and stability of small beta-sheet-forming peptides on currently accessible timescales. Simulations

  13. Balancing an accurate representation of the molecular surface in generalized Born formalisms with integrator stability in molecular dynamics simulations

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Chocholoušová, Jana; Feig, M.

    2006-01-01

    Roč. 27, č. 6 (2006), s. 719-729 ISSN 0192-8651 Keywords : molecular surface * generalized Born formalisms * molecular dynamic simulations Subject RIV: CC - Organic Chemistry Impact factor: 4.893, year: 2006

  14. Molecular Dynamics Simulation of the Structure and Properties of Lithium Phosphate Glasses

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Liang, J-J; Cygan, R.T.; Alam, T.M.

    1999-07-09

    A new forcefield model was developed for the computer simulation of phosphate materials that have many important applications in the electronics and biomedical industries. The model provides a fundamental basis for the evaluation of phosphate glass structure and thermodynamics. Molecular dynamics simulations of a series of lithium phosphate glass compositions were performed using the forcefield model. A high concentration of three-membered rings (P{sub 3}O{sub 3}) occurs in the glass of intermediate composition (0.2 Li{sub 2}O {center_dot} 0.8P{sub 2}O{sub 5}) that corresponds to the minimum in the glass transition temperature curve for the compositional series. Molecular orbital calculations of various phosphate ring clusters indicate an increasing stabilization of the phosphate ring structure going from two- to four-membered rings.

  15. Aspects of molecular dynamic of cyclohexanol studied by scattering of slow neutrons

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Walder, Vilma Sidneia

    1978-01-01

    Molecular dynamics of cyclohexanol in three crystalline phases and in the liquid state was investigated by cold neutron scattering in the temperature interval 100 to 300 K. The measurements were performed using a Beryllium Filter Time-of-Flight Spectrometer. The neutron inelastic scattering spectra and the frequency spectra fitted by a sum of Gaussians show evidences for events around 36-44. 62-79, 120-148, 216-250 and 384-509 c m -1 interpreted respectively as hundred rotation of molecules, lattice vibrations, H bond stretching vibration, out-of-line and in-plane ring bending modes. Quasi-elastic broadening were analysed in terms of modules for molecular diffusion. The behaviour of the self-diffusion coefficient with temperature was studied and the activation energies for diffusion in the liquid and solid states were determined. (author)

  16. Dynamical properties and transport coefficients of one-dimensional Lennard-Jones fluids: A molecular dynamics study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bazhenov, Alexiev M.; Heyes, David M.

    1990-01-01

    The thermodynamics, structure, and transport coefficients, as defined by the Green-Kubo integrals, of the one-dimensional Lennard-Jones fluid are evaluated for a wide range of state points by molecular dynamics computer simulation. These calculations are performed for the first time for thermal conductivity and the viscosity. We observe a transition from hard-rod behavior at low number density to harmonic-spring fluid behavior in the close-packed limit. The self-diffusion coefficient decays with increasing density to a finite limiting value. The thermal conductivity increases with density, tending to ∞ in the close-packed limit. The viscosity in contrast maximizes at intermediate density, tending to zero in the zero density and close-packed limits.

  17. A molecular-dynamics simulation of displacement cascades in α-iron

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kusunoki, Katsuyuki

    2003-01-01

    A molecular-dynamics code has been developed for simulating the early process of radiation-induced defects generation and aggregation during displacement cascades in α-iron. This code reproduces the dynamics of various types of defects such as vacancies, interstitials, and their clusters in a crystal composed of a million atoms. Main procedures and results of the present simulation are as follows. Interactions among atoms were described by a many-body EAM potential. Every simulation was performed under 3D periodical boundary conditions. Cascades were introduced into crystals by giving a kinetic energy to a knock-on atom once at a time toward a crystallographic direction along low index axes i.e. , and axes. The maximum number of Frenkel-type defects was generated for a case when the knock-on direction was along axis. Interstitial atoms surrounding residual vacancies were observed to form several clusters shortly after pair annihilation of the Frenkel-type defects. Fast massive migration of the interstitial clusters was also observed. (author)

  18. Finite-temperature orbital-free DFT molecular dynamics: Coupling PROFESS and QUANTUM ESPRESSO

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karasiev, Valentin V.; Sjostrom, Travis; Trickey, S. B.

    2014-12-01

    Implementation of orbital-free free-energy functionals in the PROFESS code and the coupling of PROFESS with the QUANTUM ESPRESSO code are described. The combination enables orbital-free DFT to drive ab initio molecular dynamics simulations on the same footing (algorithms, thermostats, convergence parameters, etc.) as for Kohn-Sham (KS) DFT. All the non-interacting free-energy functionals implemented are single-point: the local density approximation (LDA; also known as finite-T Thomas-Fermi, ftTF), the second-order gradient approximation (SGA or finite-T gradient-corrected TF), and our recently introduced finite-T generalized gradient approximations (ftGGA). Elimination of the KS orbital bottleneck via orbital-free methodology enables high-T simulations on ordinary computers, whereas those simulations would be costly or even prohibitively time-consuming for KS molecular dynamics (MD) on very high-performance computer systems. Example MD simulations on H over a temperature range 2000 K ≤ T ≤4,000,000 K are reported, with timings on small clusters (16-128 cores) and even laptops. With respect to KS-driven calculations, the orbital-free calculations are between a few times through a few hundreds of times faster.

  19. Simulations of the dissociation of small helium clusters with ab initio molecular dynamics in electronically excited states

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Closser, Kristina D.; Head-Gordon, Martin; Gessner, Oliver

    2014-01-01

    The dynamics resulting from electronic excitations of helium clusters were explored using ab initio molecular dynamics. The simulations were performed with configuration interaction singles and adiabatic classical dynamics coupled to a state-following algorithm. 100 different configurations of He 7 were excited into the 2s and 2p manifold for a total of 2800 trajectories. While the most common outcome (90%) was complete fragmentation to 6 ground state atoms and 1 excited state atom, 3% of trajectories yielded bound, He 2 * , and <0.5% yielded an excited helium trimer. The nature of the dynamics, kinetic energy release, and connections to experiments are discussed

  20. Atomic and Molecular Dynamics on and in Superfluid Helium Nanodroplets

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lehmann, Kevin K.

    2003-03-01

    Studies of intramolecular and intermolecular dynamics is at the core of Molecular Spectroscopic research several decades. Gas phase, particularly molecular beam, studies have greatly illuminated these processes in isolated molecules, bimolecular collisions, or small covalent and van der Waals complexes. Parallel to this effort have been studies in condensed phases, but there has unfortunately been little intellectual contact between these. The recent development of Helium Nanodropet Isolation Spectroscopy is providing an intellectual bridge between gas phase and condensed phase spectroscopy. While droplets of 10,000 He atoms are effectively a condensed phase, their low temperature ( 0.4 K) and ultralow heat capacities combined with their superfluid state make them an almost ideal matrix in which to study both molecular dynamics, including solute induced relaxations. The nsec times scales for many of the relaxation events, orders of magnitude slower than in classical liquids, results in spectra with unprecedented resolution for the liquid state. In this talk, studies of the Princeton group will be highlighted, with particular emphasis on those for which a combination of theory and experiment have combined to reveal dynamics in this unique Quantum Fluid.

  1. Accelerating convergence of molecular dynamics-based structural relaxation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christensen, Asbjørn

    2005-01-01

    We describe strategies to accelerate the terminal stage of molecular dynamics (MD)based relaxation algorithms, where a large fraction of the computational resources are used. First, we analyze the qualitative and quantitative behavior of the QuickMin family of MD relaxation algorithms and explore...

  2. Molecular Dynamics Investigation of Efficient SO₂ Absorption by ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Ionic liquids are appropriate candidates for the absorption of acid gases such as SO₂. Six anion functionalized ionic liquids with different basicities have been studied for SO₂ absorption capacity by employing quantum chemical calculations and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Gas phase quantum calculations ...

  3. DyNet: visualization and analysis of dynamic molecular interaction networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goenawan, Ivan H; Bryan, Kenneth; Lynn, David J

    2016-09-01

    : The ability to experimentally determine molecular interactions on an almost proteome-wide scale under different conditions is enabling researchers to move from static to dynamic network analysis, uncovering new insights into how interaction networks are physically rewired in response to different stimuli and in disease. Dynamic interaction data presents a special challenge in network biology. Here, we present DyNet, a Cytoscape application that provides a range of functionalities for the visualization, real-time synchronization and analysis of large multi-state dynamic molecular interaction networks enabling users to quickly identify and analyze the most 'rewired' nodes across many network states. DyNet is available at the Cytoscape (3.2+) App Store (http://apps.cytoscape.org/apps/dynet). david.lynn@sahmri.com Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.

  4. Molecular dynamics for irradiation driven chemistry: application to the FEBID process*

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sushko, Gennady B.; Solov'yov, Ilia A.; Solov'yov, Andrey V.

    2016-10-01

    A new molecular dynamics (MD) approach for computer simulations of irradiation driven chemical transformations of complex molecular systems is suggested. The approach is based on the fact that irradiation induced quantum transformations can often be treated as random, fast and local processes involving small molecules or molecular fragments. We advocate that the quantum transformations, such as molecular bond breaks, creation and annihilation of dangling bonds, electronic charge redistributions, changes in molecular topologies, etc., could be incorporated locally into the molecular force fields that describe the classical MD of complex molecular systems under irradiation. The proposed irradiation driven molecular dynamics (IDMD) methodology is designed for the molecular level description of the irradiation driven chemistry. The IDMD approach is implemented into the MBN Explorer software package capable to operate with a large library of classical potentials, many-body force fields and their combinations. IDMD opens a broad range of possibilities for modelling of irradiation driven modifications and chemistry of complex molecular systems ranging from radiotherapy cancer treatments to the modern technologies such as focused electron beam deposition (FEBID). As an example, the new methodology is applied for studying the irradiation driven chemistry caused by FEBID of tungsten hexacarbonyl W(CO)6 precursor molecules on a hydroxylated SiO2 surface. It is demonstrated that knowing the interaction parameters for the fragments of the molecular system arising in the course of irradiation one can reproduce reasonably well experimental observations and make predictions about the morphology and molecular composition of nanostructures that emerge on the surface during the FEBID process.

  5. Molecular dynamics simulations of stratum corneum lipid mixtures: A multiscale perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moore, Timothy C; Iacovella, Christopher R; Leonhard, Anne C; Bunge, Annette L; McCabe, Clare

    2018-03-29

    The lipid matrix of the stratum corneum (SC) layer of skin is essential for human survival; it acts as a barrier to prevent rapid dehydration while keeping potentially hazardous material outside the body. While the composition of the SC lipid matrix is known, the molecular-level details of its organization are difficult to infer experimentally, hindering the discovery of structure-property relationships. To this end, molecular dynamics simulations, which give molecular-level resolution, have begun to play an increasingly important role in understanding these relationships. However, most simulation studies of SC lipids have focused on preassembled bilayer configurations, which, owing to the slow dynamics of the lipids, may influence the final structure and hence the calculated properties. Self-assembled structures would avoid this dependence on the initial configuration, however, the size and length scales involved make self-assembly impractical to study with atomistic models. Here, we report on the development of coarse-grained models of SC lipids designed to study self-assembly. Building on previous work, we present the interactions between the headgroups of ceramide and free fatty acid developed using the multistate iterative Boltzmann inversion method. Validation of the new interactions is performed with simulations of preassembled bilayers and good agreement between the atomistic and coarse-grained models is found for structural properties. The self-assembly of mixtures of ceramide and free fatty acid is investigated and both bilayer and multilayer structures are found to form. This work therefore represents a necessary step in studying SC lipid systems on multiple time and length scales. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  6. Microscopic properties of ionic liquid/organic semiconductor interfaces revealed by molecular dynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yokota, Yasuyuki; Miyamoto, Hiroo; Imanishi, Akihito; Takeya, Jun; Inagaki, Kouji; Morikawa, Yoshitada; Fukui, Ken-Ichi

    2018-05-09

    Electric double-layer transistors based on ionic liquid/organic semiconductor interfaces have been extensively studied during the past decade because of their high carrier densities at low operation voltages. Microscopic structures and the dynamics of ionic liquids likely determine the device performance; however, knowledge of these is limited by a lack of appropriate experimental tools. In this study, we investigated ionic liquid/organic semiconductor interfaces using molecular dynamics to reveal the microscopic properties of ionic liquids. The organic semiconductors include pentacene, rubrene, fullerene, and 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ). While ionic liquids close to the substrate always form the specific layered structures, the surface properties of organic semiconductors drastically alter the ionic dynamics. Ionic liquids at the fullerene interface behave as a two-dimensional ionic crystal because of the energy gain derived from the favorable electrostatic interaction on the corrugated periodic substrate.

  7. A Coupling Tool for Parallel Molecular Dynamics-Continuum Simulations

    KAUST Repository

    Neumann, Philipp

    2012-06-01

    We present a tool for coupling Molecular Dynamics and continuum solvers. It is written in C++ and is meant to support the developers of hybrid molecular - continuum simulations in terms of both realisation of the respective coupling algorithm as well as parallel execution of the hybrid simulation. We describe the implementational concept of the tool and its parallel extensions. We particularly focus on the parallel execution of particle insertions into dense molecular systems and propose a respective parallel algorithm. Our implementations are validated for serial and parallel setups in two and three dimensions. © 2012 IEEE.

  8. Molecular electron recollision dynamics in intense circularly polarized laser pulses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bandrauk, André D.; Yuan, Kai-Jun

    2018-04-01

    Extreme UV and x-ray table top light sources based on high-order harmonic generation (HHG) are focused now on circular polarization for the generation of circularly polarized attosecond pulses as new tools for controlling electron dynamics, such as charge transfer and migration and the generation of attosecond quantum electron currents for ultrafast magneto-optics. A fundamental electron dynamical process in HHG is laser induced electron recollision with the parent ion, well established theoretically and experimentally for linear polarization. We discuss molecular electron recollision dynamics in circular polarization by theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. The control of the polarization of HHG with circularly polarized ionizing pulses is examined and it is shown that bichromatic circularly polarized pulses enhance recollision dynamics, rendering HHG more efficient, especially in molecules because of their nonspherical symmetry. The polarization of the harmonics is found to be dependent on the compatibility of the rotational symmetry of the net electric field created by combinations of bichromatic circularly polarized pulses with the dynamical symmetry of molecules. We show how the field and molecule symmetry influences the electron recollision trajectories by a time-frequency analysis of harmonics. The results, in principle, offer new unique controllable tools in the study of attosecond molecular electron dynamics.

  9. A molecular dynamics study of the structure and inter-particle interactions of polyethylene glycol-conjugated PAMAM dendrimers

    OpenAIRE

    Lee, Hwankyu; Larson, Ronald G.

    2009-01-01

    We performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of one or two copies of polyethylene glycol of molecular weight 550 (PEG550) and 5000 (PEG5000) Daltons, conjugated to generation 3 (G3) to 5 (G5) polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers with explicit water using a coarse-grained model. We found the radii of gyration of these dendrimer-PEG molecules to be close to those measured in experiments by Hedden and Bauer (Macromolecules 2003, 36, 1829). Densely grafted PEG ligands (>50% of the dendrimer surf...

  10. Accelerating molecular dynamic simulation on the cell processor and Playstation 3.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luttmann, Edgar; Ensign, Daniel L; Vaidyanathan, Vishal; Houston, Mike; Rimon, Noam; Øland, Jeppe; Jayachandran, Guha; Friedrichs, Mark; Pande, Vijay S

    2009-01-30

    Implementation of molecular dynamics (MD) calculations on novel architectures will vastly increase its power to calculate the physical properties of complex systems. Herein, we detail algorithmic advances developed to accelerate MD simulations on the Cell processor, a commodity processor found in PlayStation 3 (PS3). In particular, we discuss issues regarding memory access versus computation and the types of calculations which are best suited for streaming processors such as the Cell, focusing on implicit solvation models. We conclude with a comparison of improved performance on the PS3's Cell processor over more traditional processors. (c) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  11. Molecular dynamics study of the solvation of calcium carbonate in water.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bruneval, Fabien; Donadio, Davide; Parrinello, Michele

    2007-10-25

    We performed molecular dynamics simulations of diluted solutions of calcium carbonate in water. To this end, we combined and tested previous polarizable models. The carbonate anion forms long-living hydrogen bonds with water and shows an amphiphilic character, in which the water molecules are expelled in a region close to its C(3) symmetry axis. The calcium cation forms a strongly bound ion pair with the carbonate. The first hydration shell around the CaCO(3) pair is found to be very similar to the location of the water molecules surrounding CaCO(3) in ikaite, the hydrated mineral.

  12. Combining molecular dynamics with mesoscopic Green’s function reaction dynamics simulations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Vijaykumar, Adithya, E-mail: vijaykumar@amolf.nl [FOM Institute AMOLF, Science Park 104, 1098 XG Amsterdam (Netherlands); van ’t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 94157, 1090 GD Amsterdam (Netherlands); Bolhuis, Peter G. [van ’t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 94157, 1090 GD Amsterdam (Netherlands); Rein ten Wolde, Pieter, E-mail: p.t.wolde@amolf.nl [FOM Institute AMOLF, Science Park 104, 1098 XG Amsterdam (Netherlands)

    2015-12-07

    In many reaction-diffusion processes, ranging from biochemical networks, catalysis, to complex self-assembly, the spatial distribution of the reactants and the stochastic character of their interactions are crucial for the macroscopic behavior. The recently developed mesoscopic Green’s Function Reaction Dynamics (GFRD) method enables efficient simulation at the particle level provided the microscopic dynamics can be integrated out. Yet, many processes exhibit non-trivial microscopic dynamics that can qualitatively change the macroscopic behavior, calling for an atomistic, microscopic description. We propose a novel approach that combines GFRD for simulating the system at the mesoscopic scale where particles are far apart, with a microscopic technique such as Langevin dynamics or Molecular Dynamics (MD), for simulating the system at the microscopic scale where reactants are in close proximity. This scheme defines the regions where the particles are close together and simulated with high microscopic resolution and those where they are far apart and simulated with lower mesoscopic resolution, adaptively on the fly. The new multi-scale scheme, called MD-GFRD, is generic and can be used to efficiently simulate reaction-diffusion systems at the particle level.

  13. Combining molecular dynamics with mesoscopic Green’s function reaction dynamics simulations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vijaykumar, Adithya; Bolhuis, Peter G.; Rein ten Wolde, Pieter

    2015-01-01

    In many reaction-diffusion processes, ranging from biochemical networks, catalysis, to complex self-assembly, the spatial distribution of the reactants and the stochastic character of their interactions are crucial for the macroscopic behavior. The recently developed mesoscopic Green’s Function Reaction Dynamics (GFRD) method enables efficient simulation at the particle level provided the microscopic dynamics can be integrated out. Yet, many processes exhibit non-trivial microscopic dynamics that can qualitatively change the macroscopic behavior, calling for an atomistic, microscopic description. We propose a novel approach that combines GFRD for simulating the system at the mesoscopic scale where particles are far apart, with a microscopic technique such as Langevin dynamics or Molecular Dynamics (MD), for simulating the system at the microscopic scale where reactants are in close proximity. This scheme defines the regions where the particles are close together and simulated with high microscopic resolution and those where they are far apart and simulated with lower mesoscopic resolution, adaptively on the fly. The new multi-scale scheme, called MD-GFRD, is generic and can be used to efficiently simulate reaction-diffusion systems at the particle level

  14. Human Skin Barrier Structure and Function Analyzed by Cryo-EM and Molecular Dynamics Simulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lundborg, Magnus; Narangifard, Ali; Wennberg, Christian L; Lindahl, Erik; Daneholt, Bertil; Norlén, Lars

    2018-04-24

    In the present study we have analyzed the molecular structure and function of the human skin's permeability barrier using molecular dynamics simulation validated against cryo-electron microscopy data from near native skin. The skin's barrier capacity is located to an intercellular lipid structure embedding the cells of the superficial most layer of skin - the stratum corneum. According to the splayed bilayer model (Iwai et al., 2012) the lipid structure is organized as stacked bilayers of ceramides in a splayed chain conformation with cholesterol associated with the ceramide sphingoid moiety and free fatty acids associated with the ceramide fatty acid moiety. However, knowledge about the lipid structure's detailed molecular organization, and the roles of its different lipid constituents, remains circumstantial. Starting from a molecular dynamics model based on the splayed bilayer model, we have, by stepwise structural and compositional modifications, arrived at a thermodynamically stable molecular dynamics model expressing simulated electron microscopy patterns matching original cryo-electron microscopy patterns from skin extremely closely. Strikingly, the closer the individual molecular dynamics models' lipid composition was to that reported in human stratum corneum, the better was the match between the models' simulated electron microscopy patterns and the original cryo-electron microscopy patterns. Moreover, the closest-matching model's calculated water permeability and thermotropic behaviour were found compatible with that of human skin. The new model may facilitate more advanced physics-based skin permeability predictions of drugs and toxicants. The proposed procedure for molecular dynamics based analysis of cellular cryo-electron microscopy data might be applied to other biomolecular systems. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  15. Medicinal plant phytochemicals and their inhibitory activities against pancreatic lipase: molecular docking combined with molecular dynamics simulation approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahmed, Bilal; Ali Ashfaq, Usman; Usman Mirza, Muhammad

    2018-05-01

    Obesity is the worst health risk worldwide, which is linked to a number of diseases. Pancreatic lipase is considered as an affective cause of obesity and can be a major target for controlling the obesity. The present study was designed to find out best phytochemicals against pancreatic lipase through molecular docking combined with molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. For this purpose, a total of 3770 phytochemicals were docked against pancreatic lipase and ranked them on the basis of binding affinity. Finally, 10 molecules (Kushenol K, Rosmarinic acid, Reserpic acid, Munjistin, Leachianone G, Cephamycin C, Arctigenin, 3-O-acetylpadmatin, Geniposide and Obtusin) were selected that showed strong bonding with the pancreatic lipase. MD simulations were performed on top five compounds using AMBER16. The simulated complexes revealed stability and ligands remained inside the binding pocket. This study concluded that these finalised molecules can be used as drug candidate to control obesity.

  16. Dissociation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: molecular dynamics studies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simon, A.; Rapacioli, M.; Rouaut, G.; Trinquier, G.; Gadéa, F. X.

    2017-03-01

    We present dynamical studies of the dissociation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) radical cations in their ground electronic states with significant internal energy. Molecular dynamics simulations are performed, the electronic structure being described on-the-fly at the self-consistent-charge density functional-based tight binding (SCC-DFTB) level of theory. The SCC-DFTB approach is first benchmarked against DFT results. Extensive simulations are achieved for naphthalene , pyrene and coronene at several energies. Such studies enable one to derive significant trends on branching ratios, kinetics, structures and hints on the formation mechanism of the ejected neutral fragments. In particular, dependence of branching ratios on PAH size and energy were retrieved. The losses of H and C2H2 (recognized as the ethyne molecule) were identified as major dissociation channels. The H/C2H2 ratio was found to increase with PAH size and to decrease with energy. For , which is the most interesting PAH from the astrophysical point of view, the loss of H was found as the quasi-only channel for an internal energy of 30 eV. Overall, in line with experimental trends, decreasing the internal energy or increasing the PAH size will favour the hydrogen loss channels with respect to carbonaceous fragments. This article is part of the themed issue 'Theoretical and computational studies of non-equilibrium and non-statistical dynamics in the gas phase, in the condensed phase and at interfaces'.

  17. Molecular dynamics simulation of square graphene-nanoflake oscillator on graphene nanoribbon.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kang, Jeong Won; Lee, Kang Whan

    2014-12-01

    Graphene nanoflakes (GNFs) have been of interest for a building block in order to develop electromechanical devices on a nanometer scale. Here, we present the oscillation motions of a square GNF oscillator on graphene nanoribbon (GNR) in the retracting-motions by performing classical molecular dynamics simulations. The simulation results showed that the GNF oscillators can be considered as a building block for nanoelectromechanical systems such as carbon-nanotube (CNT) oscillators. The oscillation dynamics of the GNF oscillator were similar to those of the CNT oscillators. When the square GNF had an initial velocity as impulse dynamics, its oscillation motions on the GNR were achieved from its self-retracting van der Waals force. For low initial velocity, its translational motions were dominant in its motions rather than its rotational motions. The kinetic energy damping ratio rapidly decreased as initial velocity increased and the kinetic energy for the translational motion of the GNF oscillator rapidly transferred into that for its rotational motion. The oscillation frequency of the GNF oscillator was dependent on its initial velocity.

  18. Structure-activity relationships of pyrethroid insecticides. Part 2. The use of molecular dynamics for conformation searching and average parameter calculation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hudson, Brian D.; George, Ashley R.; Ford, Martyn G.; Livingstone, David J.

    1992-04-01

    Molecular dynamics simulations have been performed on a number of conformationally flexible pyrethroid insecticides. The results indicate that molecular dynamics is a suitable tool for conformational searching of small molecules given suitable simulation parameters. The structures derived from the simulations are compared with the static conformation used in a previous study. Various physicochemical parameters have been calculated for a set of conformations selected from the simulations using multivariate analysis. The averaged values of the parameters over the selected set (and the factors derived from them) are compared with the single conformation values used in the previous study.

  19. Molecular dynamics study of silver

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Akhter, J.I.; Yaldram, K.; Ahmad, W.; Khan, M.K.; Rehman, T.S.

    1995-03-01

    We present results of molecular dynamics study using the embedded atom potential to examine the equilibrium bulk properties of Ag. We calculate the total energy and the lattice parameters as a function of temperature. From these we determine the specific heat and linear coefficient of thermal expansion. The comparison with experimental results of these two quantities is found to be excellent. We have also calculated the mean square displacement of the atoms in the three directions. As expected because of symmetry the displacements in the three directions are comparable and increase with increasing temperature. (author) 5 figs

  20. Nonlinear dynamics of zigzag molecular chains (in Russian)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Savin, A. V.; Manevitsch, L. I.; Christiansen, Peter Leth

    1999-01-01

    models (two-dimensional alpha-spiral, polyethylene transzigzag backbone, and the zigzag chain of hydrogen bonds) shows that the zigzag structure essentially limits the soliton dynamics to finite, relatively narrow, supersonic soliton velocity intervals and may also result in that several acoustic soliton......Nonlinear, collective, soliton type excitations in zigzag molecular chains are analyzed. It is shown that the nonlinear dynamics of a chain dramatically changes in passing from the one-dimensional linear chain to the more realistic planar zigzag model-due, in particular, to the geometry...

  1. Stability of molecular dynamics simulations of classical systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Toxværd, Søren

    2012-01-01

    The existence of a shadow Hamiltonian for discrete classical dynamics, obtained by an asymptotic expansion for a discrete symplectic algorithm, is employed to determine the limit of stability for molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with respect to the time-increment h of the discrete dynamics....... The investigation is based on the stability of the shadow energy, obtained by including the first term in the asymptotic expansion, and on the exact solution of discrete dynamics for a single harmonic mode. The exact solution of discrete dynamics for a harmonic potential with frequency ω gives a criterion...... for the limit of stability h ⩽ 2/ω. Simulations of the Lennard-Jones system and the viscous Kob-Andersen system show that one can use the limit of stability of the shadow energy or the stability criterion for a harmonic mode on the spectrum of instantaneous frequencies to determine the limit of stability of MD...

  2. Crystal structure and pair potentials: A molecular-dynamics study

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Parrinello, M.; Rahman, A.

    1980-10-06

    With use of a Lagrangian which allows for the variation of the shape and size of the periodically repeating molecular-dynamics cell, it is shown that different pair potentials lead to different crystal structures.

  3. Molecular dynamics simulations and free energy profile of ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    aDepartment of Chemical Engineering, bDepartment of Chemistry, Amirkabir University of Technology,. 15875-4413 ... Lipid bilayers; Paracetamol; free energy; molecular dynamics simulation; membrane. 1. ..... bilayer is less favourable due to the hydrophobic nature .... Orsi M and Essex J W 2010 Soft Matter 6 3797. 54.

  4. Microsecond molecular dynamics simulation shows effect of slow loop dynamics on backbone amide order parameters of proteins

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Maragakis, Paul; Lindorff-Larsen, Kresten; Eastwood, Michael P

    2008-01-01

    . Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation provides a complementary approach to the study of protein dynamics on similar time scales. Comparisons between NMR spectroscopy and MD simulations can be used to interpret experimental results and to improve the quality of simulation-related force fields and integration......A molecular-level understanding of the function of a protein requires knowledge of both its structural and dynamic properties. NMR spectroscopy allows the measurement of generalized order parameters that provide an atomistic description of picosecond and nanosecond fluctuations in protein structure...... methods. However, apparent systematic discrepancies between order parameters extracted from simulations and experiments are common, particularly for elements of noncanonical secondary structure. In this paper, results from a 1.2 micros explicit solvent MD simulation of the protein ubiquitin are compared...

  5. Plastic dislocation motion via nonequilibrium molecular and continuum dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hoover, W.G.; Ladd, A.J.C.; Hoover, N.E.

    1980-01-01

    The classical two-dimensional close-packed triangular lattice, with nearest-neighbor spring forces, is a convenient standard material for the investigation of dislocation motion and plastic flow. Two kinds of calculations, based on this standard material, are described here: (1) Molecular Dynamics simulations, incorporating adiabatic strains described with the help of Doll's Tensor, and (2) Continuum Dynamics simulations, incorporating periodic boundaries and dislocation interaction through stress-field superposition

  6. Atomistic Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Mitochondrial DNA Polymerase γ

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Euro, Liliya; Haapanen, Outi; Róg, Tomasz

    2017-01-01

    of replisomal interactions, and functional effects of patient mutations that do not affect direct catalysis have remained elusive. Here we report the first atomistic classical molecular dynamics simulations of the human Pol γ replicative complex. Our simulation data show that DNA binding triggers remarkable......DNA polymerase γ (Pol γ) is a key component of the mitochondrial DNA replisome and an important cause of neurological diseases. Despite the availability of its crystal structures, the molecular mechanism of DNA replication, the switch between polymerase and exonuclease activities, the site...... changes in the enzyme structure, including (1) completion of the DNA-binding channel via a dynamic subdomain, which in the apo form blocks the catalytic site, (2) stabilization of the structure through the distal accessory β-subunit, and (3) formation of a putative transient replisome-binding platform...

  7. Enhancing protein adsorption simulations by using accelerated molecular dynamics.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christian Mücksch

    Full Text Available The atomistic modeling of protein adsorption on surfaces is hampered by the different time scales of the simulation ([Formula: see text][Formula: see text]s and experiment (up to hours, and the accordingly different 'final' adsorption conformations. We provide evidence that the method of accelerated molecular dynamics is an efficient tool to obtain equilibrated adsorption states. As a model system we study the adsorption of the protein BMP-2 on graphite in an explicit salt water environment. We demonstrate that due to the considerably improved sampling of conformational space, accelerated molecular dynamics allows to observe the complete unfolding and spreading of the protein on the hydrophobic graphite surface. This result is in agreement with the general finding of protein denaturation upon contact with hydrophobic surfaces.

  8. Towards Rectifying Performance at the Molecular Scale.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Guang-Ping; Xie, Zhen; Song, Yang; Hu, Gui-Chao; Wang, Chuan-Kui

    2017-10-24

    Molecular diode, proposed by Mark Ratner and Arieh Aviram in 1974, is the first single-molecule device investigated in molecular electronics. As a fundamental device in an electric circuit, molecular diode has attracted an enduring and extensive focus during the past decades. In this review, the theoretical and experimental progresses of both charge-based and spin-based molecular diodes are summarized. For the charge-based molecular diodes, the rectifying properties originated from asymmetric molecules including D-σ-A, D-π-A, D-A, and σ-π type compounds, asymmetric electrodes, asymmetric nanoribbons, and their combination are analyzed. Correspondingly, the rectification mechanisms are discussed in detail. Furthermore, a series of strategies for modulating rectification performance is figured out. Discussion on concept of molecular spin diode is also involved based on a magnetic co-oligomer. At the same time, the intrinsic mechanism as well as the modulation of the spin-current rectification performance is introduced. Finally, several crucial issues that need to be addressed in the future are given.

  9. Molecular dynamics based enhanced sampling of collective variables with very large time steps

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Pei-Yang; Tuckerman, Mark E.

    2018-01-01

    Enhanced sampling techniques that target a set of collective variables and that use molecular dynamics as the driving engine have seen widespread application in the computational molecular sciences as a means to explore the free-energy landscapes of complex systems. The use of molecular dynamics as the fundamental driver of the sampling requires the introduction of a time step whose magnitude is limited by the fastest motions in a system. While standard multiple time-stepping methods allow larger time steps to be employed for the slower and computationally more expensive forces, the maximum achievable increase in time step is limited by resonance phenomena, which inextricably couple fast and slow motions. Recently, we introduced deterministic and stochastic resonance-free multiple time step algorithms for molecular dynamics that solve this resonance problem and allow ten- to twenty-fold gains in the large time step compared to standard multiple time step algorithms [P. Minary et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 150201 (2004); B. Leimkuhler et al., Mol. Phys. 111, 3579-3594 (2013)]. These methods are based on the imposition of isokinetic constraints that couple the physical system to Nosé-Hoover chains or Nosé-Hoover Langevin schemes. In this paper, we show how to adapt these methods for collective variable-based enhanced sampling techniques, specifically adiabatic free-energy dynamics/temperature-accelerated molecular dynamics, unified free-energy dynamics, and by extension, metadynamics, thus allowing simulations employing these methods to employ similarly very large time steps. The combination of resonance-free multiple time step integrators with free-energy-based enhanced sampling significantly improves the efficiency of conformational exploration.

  10. Molecular dynamics simulations of elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication and boundary lubrication for automotive tribology

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Washizu, Hitoshi; Sanda, Shuzo; Hyodo, Shi-aki; Ohmori, Toshihide; Nishino, Noriaki; Suzuki, Atsushi

    2007-01-01

    Friction control of machine elements on a molecular level is a challenging subject in vehicle technology. We describe the molecular dynamics studies of friction in two significant lubrication regimes. As a case of elastohydrodynamic lubrication, we introduce the mechanism of momentum transfer related to the molecular structure of the hydrocarbon fluids, phase transition of the fluids under high pressure, and a submicron thickness simulation of the oil film using a tera-flops computer. For boundary lubrication, the dynamic behavior of water molecules on hydrophilic and hydrophobic silicon surfaces under a shear condition is studied. The dynamic structure of the hydrogen bond network on the hydrophilic surface is related to the low friction of the diamond-like carbon containing silicon (DLC-Si) coating

  11. Enhanced Sampling in Molecular Dynamics Using Metadynamics, Replica-Exchange, and Temperature-Acceleration

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cameron Abrams

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available We review a selection of methods for performing enhanced sampling in molecular dynamics simulations. We consider methods based on collective variable biasing and on tempering, and offer both historical and contemporary perspectives. In collective-variable biasing, we first discuss methods stemming from thermodynamic integration that use mean force biasing, including the adaptive biasing force algorithm and temperature acceleration. We then turn to methods that use bias potentials, including umbrella sampling and metadynamics. We next consider parallel tempering and replica-exchange methods. We conclude with a brief presentation of some combination methods.

  12. Molecular dynamics simulation on double-elastic deformation of zigzag graphene nanoribbons at low temperature

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sun, Y.J.; Huang, Y.H.; Ma, F.; Ma, D.Y.; Hu, T.W.; Xu, K.W.

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: • Molecular dynamics simulation was performed to study the deformation behaviors of Zigzag Graphene Nano-Ribbons (ZGNRs). • The “phase transformation” from hexagonal to quasi-rectangular and the subsequent second elastic deformation were observed. • Related thermal effects model was built to predict fracture strain of ZGNRs, and was consistent with simulation results. -- Abstract: Molecular dynamics simulation was performed to study the deformation behaviors of Zigzag Graphene Nano-Ribbons (ZGNRs) 150 Å × 150 Å in size, and double-elastic deformation was observed at temperatures lower than 90 K. Essentially, at such a low temperature, the lattice vibration was significantly weakened and thus the lifetime of C-C bonds was prolonged considerably. Moreover, it was difficult for broken bonds to accumulate and resulted in the destructive fracture of ZGNRs at low temperature. As a result, the “phase transformation” from hexagonal to quasi-rectangular and subsequently the second elastic deformation took place. However, at higher temperatures, says, 300 K, brittle fracture was observed and the fracture strength decreased with temperature, which was consistent with previously reported results. Additionally at higher strain rate, the atoms could not respond to the external loading in time, the fracture strain and fracture strength were enhanced

  13. Dynamic analysis of electron density in the course of the internal motion of molecular system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tachibana, A.; Hori, K.; Asai, Y.; Yamabe, T.

    1984-01-01

    The general dynamic aspect of electron density of a molecular system is studied on the basis of the general equation of the electron orbital which is formulated for the dynamic study of electronic motion. The newly defined electron orbital incorporates the dynamics of molecular vibration into the electronic structures. In this scheme, the change of electron distribution caused by excitation of vibrational state is defined as the ''dynamic electron transfer.'' The dynamic electron density is found to have the remarkable ''additive'' property. The time-dependent aspect of the dynamic electron redistribution is also analyzed on the basis of the ''coherent state.'' The new method relates the classical vibrational amplitude to the quantum number of the vibrational state. As a preliminary application of the present treatment, the dynamic electron densities of H 2 , HD, HT, HF, and HCl molecules are calculated by use of ab initio molecular orbital method

  14. A Kepler Workflow Tool for Reproducible AMBER GPU Molecular Dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Purawat, Shweta; Ieong, Pek U; Malmstrom, Robert D; Chan, Garrett J; Yeung, Alan K; Walker, Ross C; Altintas, Ilkay; Amaro, Rommie E

    2017-06-20

    With the drive toward high throughput molecular dynamics (MD) simulations involving ever-greater numbers of simulation replicates run for longer, biologically relevant timescales (microseconds), the need for improved computational methods that facilitate fully automated MD workflows gains more importance. Here we report the development of an automated workflow tool to perform AMBER GPU MD simulations. Our workflow tool capitalizes on the capabilities of the Kepler platform to deliver a flexible, intuitive, and user-friendly environment and the AMBER GPU code for a robust and high-performance simulation engine. Additionally, the workflow tool reduces user input time by automating repetitive processes and facilitates access to GPU clusters, whose high-performance processing power makes simulations of large numerical scale possible. The presented workflow tool facilitates the management and deployment of large sets of MD simulations on heterogeneous computing resources. The workflow tool also performs systematic analysis on the simulation outputs and enhances simulation reproducibility, execution scalability, and MD method development including benchmarking and validation. Copyright © 2017 Biophysical Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Molecular packing, hydrogen bonding, and fast dynamics in lysozyme/trehalose/glycerol and trehalose/glycerol glasses at low hydration

    OpenAIRE

    Lerbret, Adrien; Affouard, Frédéric

    2017-01-01

    Water and glycerol are well-known to facilitate the structural relaxation of amorphous protein matrices. However, several studies evidenced that they may also limit fast ($\\sim$ pico-nanosecond, ps-ns) and small-amplitude ($\\sim$ \\AA ) motions of proteins, which govern their stability in freeze-dried sugar mixtures. To determine how they interact with proteins and sugars in glassy matrices and, thereby, modulate their fast dynamics, we performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of lysozyme...

  16. A hybrid particle–field molecular dynamics approach: a route toward efficient coarse-grained models for biomembranes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Milano, Giuseppe; De Nicola, Antonio; Kawakatsu, Toshihiro

    2013-01-01

    This paper gives an overview of the coarse-grained models of phospholipids recently developed by the authors in the frame of a hybrid particle–field molecular dynamics technique. This technique employs a special class of coarse-grained models that are gaining popularity because they allow simulations of large scale systems and, at the same time, they provide sufficiently detailed chemistry for the mapping scheme adopted. The comparison of the computational costs of our approach with standard molecular dynamics simulations is a function of the system size and the number of processors employed in the parallel calculations. Due to the low amount of data exchange, the larger the number of processors, the better are the performances of the hybrid particle–field models. This feature makes these models very promising ones in the exploration of several problems in biophysics. (paper)

  17. Free energy from molecular dynamics with multiple constraints

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    den Otter, Wouter K.; Briels, Willem J.

    2000-01-01

    In molecular dynamics simulations of reacting systems, the key step to determining the equilibrium constant and the reaction rate is the calculation of the free energy as a function of the reaction coordinate. Intuitively the derivative of the free energy is equal to the average force needed to

  18. Molecular Dynamics and Bioactivity of a Novel Mutated Human ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Keywords: Parathyroid hormone, Mutation prediction, Molecular dynamics, RANKL/OPG, UAMS-32P cell. Tropical .... PTH1R were used as MD simulation starting points. A full-atom ... Values of RMSD, Rg, and potential energy evaluation ...

  19. Dynamics and Thermodynamics of Transthyretin Association from Molecular Dynamics Simulations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cedrix J. Dongmo Foumthuim

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Molecular dynamics simulations are used in this work to probe the structural stability and the dynamics of engineered mutants of transthyretin (TTR, i.e., the double mutant F87M/L110M (MT-TTR and the triple mutant F87M/L110M/S117E (3M-TTR, in relation to wild-type. Free energy analysis from end-point simulations and statistical effective energy functions are used to analyze trajectories, revealing that mutations do not have major impact on protein structure but rather on protein association, shifting the equilibria towards dissociated species. The result is confirmed by the analysis of 3M-TTR which shows dissociation within the first 10 ns of the simulation, indicating that contacts are lost at the dimer-dimer interface, whereas dimers (formed by monomers which pair to form two extended β-sheets appear fairly stable. Overall the simulations provide a detailed view of the dynamics and thermodynamics of wild-type and mutant transthyretins and a rationale of the observed effects.

  20. The chaos and order in nuclear molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Srokowski, T.

    1995-01-01

    The subject of the presented report is role of chaos in scattering processes in the frame of molecular dynamics. In this model, it is assumed that scattering particles (nuclei) consist of not-interacted components as alpha particles or 12 C, 16 O and 20 Ne clusters. The results show such effects as dynamical in stabilities and fractal structure as well as compound nuclei decay and heavy-ion fusion. The goal of the report is to make the reader more familiar with the chaos model and its application to nuclear phenomena. 157 refs, 40 figs

  1. Dynamics of Oxidation of Aluminum Nanoclusters using Variable Charge Molecular-Dynamics Simulations on Parallel Computers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Campbell, Timothy; Kalia, Rajiv K.; Nakano, Aiichiro; Vashishta, Priya; Ogata, Shuji; Rodgers, Stephen

    1999-06-01

    Oxidation of aluminum nanoclusters is investigated with a parallel molecular-dynamics approach based on dynamic charge transfer among atoms. Structural and dynamic correlations reveal that significant charge transfer gives rise to large negative pressure in the oxide which dominates the positive pressure due to steric forces. As a result, aluminum moves outward and oxygen moves towards the interior of the cluster with the aluminum diffusivity 60% higher than that of oxygen. A stable 40 Å thick amorphous oxide is formed; this is in excellent agreement with experiments.

  2. Molecular dynamics simulations of H2 adsorption in tetramethyl ammonium lithium phthalocyanine crystalline structures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lamonte, Kevin; Gómez Gualdrón, Diego A; Cabrales-Navarro, Fredy A; Scanlon, Lawrence G; Sandi, Giselle; Feld, William; Balbuena, Perla B

    2008-12-11

    Tetramethyl ammonium lithium phthalocyanine is explored as a potential material for storage of molecular hydrogen. Density functional theory calculations are used to investigate the molecular structure and the dimer conformation. Additional scans performed to determine the interactions of a H2 molecule located at various distances from the molecular sites are used to generate a simple force field including dipole-induced-dipole interactions. This force field is employed in molecular dynamics simulations to calculate adsorption isotherms at various pressures. The regions of strongest adsorption are quantified as functions of temperature, pressure, and separation between molecules in the adsorbent phase, and compared to the regions of strongest binding energy as given by the proposed force field. It is found that the total adsorption could not be predicted only from the spatial distribution of the strongest binding energies; the available volume is the other contributing factor even if the volume includes regions of much lower binding energy. The results suggest that the complex anion is primarily involved in the adsorption process with molecular hydrogen, whereas the cation serves to provide access for hydrogen adsorption in both sides of the anion molecular plane, and spacing between the planes.

  3. Molecular Dynamics Simulations Suggest Ligand’s Binding to Nicotinamidase/Pyrazinamidase

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Ji-Long; Zheng, Qing-Chuan; Li, Zheng-Qiang; Zhang, Hong-Xing

    2012-01-01

    The research on the binding process of ligand to pyrazinamidase (PncA) is crucial for elucidating the inherent relationship between resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and PncA’s activity. In the present study, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation methods were performed to investigate the unbinding process of nicotinamide (NAM) from two PncA enzymes, which is the reverse of the corresponding binding process. The calculated potential of mean force (PMF) based on the steered molecular dynamics (SMD) simulations sheds light on an optimal binding/unbinding pathway of the ligand. The comparative analyses between two PncAs clearly exhibit the consistency of the binding/unbinding pathway in the two enzymes, implying the universality of the pathway in all kinds of PncAs. Several important residues dominating the pathway were also determined by the calculation of interaction energies. The structural change of the proteins induced by NAM’s unbinding or binding shows the great extent interior motion in some homologous region adjacent to the active sites of the two PncAs. The structure comparison substantiates that this region should be very important for the ligand’s binding in all PncAs. Additionally, MD simulations also show that the coordination position of the ligand is displaced by one water molecule in the unliganded enzymes. These results could provide the more penetrating understanding of drug resistance of M. tuberculosis and be helpful for the development of new antituberculosis drugs. PMID:22761821

  4. Integrating atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, experiments and network analysis to study protein dynamics: strength in unity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elena ePapaleo

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available In the last years, we have been observing remarkable improvements in the field of protein dynamics. Indeed, we can now study protein dynamics in atomistic details over several timescales with a rich portfolio of experimental and computational techniques. On one side, this provides us with the possibility to validate simulation methods and physical models against a broad range of experimental observables. On the other side, it also allows a complementary and comprehensive view on protein structure and dynamics. What is needed now is a better understanding of the link between the dynamic properties that we observe and the functional properties of these important cellular machines. To make progresses in this direction, we need to improve the physical models used to describe proteins and solvent in molecular dynamics, as well as to strengthen the integration of experiments and simulations to overcome their own limitations. Moreover, now that we have the means to study protein dynamics in great details, we need new tools to understand the information embedded in the protein ensembles and in their dynamic signature. With this aim in mind, we should enrich the current tools for analysis of biomolecular simulations with attention to the effects that can be propagated over long distances and are often associated to important biological functions. In this context, approaches inspired by network analysis can make an important contribution to the analysis of molecular dynamics simulations.

  5. Fermionic molecular dynamics for ground states and collisions of nuclei

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Feldmeier, H.; Bieler, K.; Schnack, J.

    1994-08-01

    The antisymmetric many-body trial state which describes a system of interacting fermions is parametrized in terms of localized wave packets. The equations of motion are derived from the time-dependent quantum variational principle. The resulting Fermionic Molecular Dynamics (FMD) equations include a wide range of semi-quantal to classical physics extending from deformed Hartree-Fock theory to Newtonian molecular dynamics. Conservation laws are discussed in connection with the choice of the trial state. The model is applied to heavy-ion collisions with which its basic features are illustrated. The results show a great variety of phenomena including deeply inelastic collisions, fusion, incomplete fusion, fragmentation, neck emission, promptly emitted nucleons and evaporation. (orig.)

  6. Mechanical Property and Analysis of Asphalt Components Based on Molecular Dynamics Simulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rui Li

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The asphalt-aggregate interface interaction plays a significant role in the overall performances of asphalt mixture. In order to analyze the chemical constitution of asphalt effects on the asphalt-aggregate interaction, the average structure C64H52S2 is selected to represent the asphalt, and the colloid, saturated phenol, and asphaltene are selected to represent the major constitutions in asphalt. The molecular models are established for the three compositions, respectively, and the Molecular Dynamics (MD simulation was conducted for the three kinds of asphaltene-aggregate system at different presses. Comparing the E value of Young modulus of these three polymers, the maximum modulus value of asphaltene was 2.80 GPa, the modulus value of colloid was secondary, and the minimum modulus of saturated phenol was 0.52 GPa. This result corresponds to conventional understanding.

  7. Emission spectroscopic studies on dynamics of molecular excitation and dissociation by controlled electron impact

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ogawa, Teiichiro

    1986-01-01

    Emission spectrum by controlled electron impact has been a successful technique for the investigation of molecular dynamics. (1) Molecular excitation. Aromatic molecules give an optical emission similar to fluorescence. However, as is shown by the vibrational structure and the electron energy dependence of benzene emission, its excitation process is not necessarily optical. Some aliphatic molecules also exhibit an emission band at the ultraviolet region. (2) Molecular dissociation. Analysis of the Doppler profile, the threshold energy, the excitation function and the isotope effect of the atomic emission produced in electron-molecule collisions has clarified the dynamics of the molecular dissociation. Especially the Doppler profile has given the translational energy distribution of the fragment atom, which is very useful to disclose the potential energy curve. Its angular dependence has recently found to allow determination of the symmetry of the intermediate excited state and the magnetic sublevel distribution of the fragment atom. These finding has revealed detailed state-to-state dynamics of the molecular dissociation. (author)

  8. RUMD: A general purpose molecular dynamics package optimized to utilize GPU hardware down to a few thousand particles

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bailey, Nicholas; Ingebrigtsen, Trond; Hansen, Jesper Schmidt

    2017-01-01

    RUMD is a general purpose, high-performance molecular dynamics (MD) simulation package running on graphical processing units (GPU’s). RUMD addresses the challenge of utilizing the many-core nature of modern GPU hardware when simulating small to medium system sizes (roughly from a few thousand up...

  9. Molecular dynamics simulation of a chemical reaction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gorecki, J.; Gryko, J.

    1988-06-01

    Molecular dynamics is used to study the chemical reaction A+A→B+B. It is shown that the reaction rate constant follows the Arrhenius law both for Lennard-Jones and hard sphere interaction potentials between substrate particles. A. For the denser systems the reaction rate is proportional to the value of the radial distribution function at the contact point of two hard spheres. 10 refs, 4 figs

  10. Photocatalytic oxidation dynamics of acetone on TiO2: tight-binding quantum chemical molecular dynamics study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lv Chen; Wang Xiaojing; Agalya, Govindasamy; Koyama, Michihisa; Kubo, Momoji; Miyamoto, Akira

    2005-01-01

    The clarification of the excited states dynamics on TiO 2 surface is important subject for the design of the highly active photocatalysts. In the present study, we applied our novel tight-binding quantum chemical molecular dynamics method to the investigation on the photocatalytic oxidation dynamics of acetone by photogenerated OH radicals on the hydrated anatase TiO 2 surface. The elucidated photocatalytic reaction mechanism strongly supports the previous experimental proposal and finally the effectiveness of our new approach for the clarification of the photocatalytic reaction dynamics employing the large simulation model was confirmed

  11. dynamic performance of research reactors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Abo elnor, A.G.M.

    2007-01-01

    this work studies the dynamic performance of material testing reactor (MTR), where the dynamic performance of any reactor reflects its safety behavior and it should enhance its intrinsic characteristics s ystem corrects itself internally without introducing external corrective action . the present work analyzes and studies the dynamic performance of mtr through the transfer function. the servo system parameters can be changed to fit the system demand. the servo system is an excellent approximation to some of the practical servo system currently use in reactor control system, and a quadratic form of this sort should closely approximate the behavior of almost any type of physical equipment which might be chosen to drive a control rod. proposed changes in servo system parameters could enhance the dynamic performance of the system , but the suitable parameters can be evaluated by using the automatic reactor power control system model

  12. Analyzing the Molecular Kinetics of Water Spreading on Hydrophobic Surfaces via Molecular Dynamics Simulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Lei; Cheng, Jiangtao

    2017-09-07

    In this paper, we report molecular kinetic analyses of water spreading on hydrophobic surfaces via molecular dynamics simulation. The hydrophobic surfaces are composed of amorphous polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) with a static contact angle of ~112.4° for water. On the basis of the molecular kinetic theory (MKT), the influences of both viscous damping and solid-liquid retarding were analyzed in evaluating contact line friction, which characterizes the frictional force on the contact line. The unit displacement length on PTFE was estimated to be ~0.621 nm and is ~4 times as long as the bond length of C-C backbone. The static friction coefficient was found to be ~[Formula: see text] Pa·s, which is on the same order of magnitude as the dynamic viscosity of water, and increases with the droplet size. A nondimensional number defined by the ratio of the standard deviation of wetting velocity to the characteristic wetting velocity was put forward to signify the strength of the inherent contact line fluctuation and unveil the mechanism of enhanced energy dissipation in nanoscale, whereas such effect would become insignificant in macroscale. Moreover, regarding a liquid droplet on hydrophobic or superhydrophobic surfaces, an approximate solution to the base radius development was derived by an asymptotic expansion approach.

  13. Stereochemical errors and their implications for molecular dynamics simulations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Freddolino Peter L

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Biological molecules are often asymmetric with respect to stereochemistry, and correct stereochemistry is essential to their function. Molecular dynamics simulations of biomolecules have increasingly become an integral part of biophysical research. However, stereochemical errors in biomolecular structures can have a dramatic impact on the results of simulations. Results Here we illustrate the effects that chirality and peptide bond configuration flips may have on the secondary structure of proteins throughout a simulation. We also analyze the most common sources of stereochemical errors in biomolecular structures and present software tools to identify, correct, and prevent stereochemical errors in molecular dynamics simulations of biomolecules. Conclusions Use of the tools presented here should become a standard step in the preparation of biomolecular simulations and in the generation of predicted structural models for proteins and nucleic acids.

  14. In situ diffraction profile analysis during tensile deformation motivated by molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Van Swygenhoven, H.; Budrovic, Z.; Derlet, P.M.; Froseth, A.G.; Van Petegem, S.

    2005-01-01

    Molecular dynamics simulations can provide insight into the slip mechanism at the atomic scale and suggest that in nanocrystalline metals dislocations are nucleated and absorbed by the grain boundaries. However, this technique is limited by very short simulation times. Using suggestions from molecular dynamics, we have developed a new in situ X-ray diffraction technique wherein the profile analysis of several Bragg diffraction peaks during tensile deformation is possible. Combining experiment and careful structural analysis the results confirm the suggestions from atomistic simulations

  15. A molecular dynamics algorithm for simulation of field theories in the canonical ensemble

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kogut, J.B.; Sinclair, D.K.

    1986-01-01

    We add a single scalar degree of freedom (''demon'') to the microcanonical ensemble which converts its molecular dynamics into a simulation method for the canonical ensemble (euclidean path integral) of the underlying field theory. This generalization of the microcanonical molecular dynamics algorithm simulates the field theory at fixed coupling with a completely deterministic procedure. We discuss the finite size effects of the method, the equipartition theorem and ergodicity. The method is applied to the planar model in two dimensions and SU(3) lattice gauge theory with four species of light, dynamical quarks in four dimensions. The method is much less sensitive to its discrete time step than conventional Langevin equation simulations of the canonical ensemble. The method is a straightforward generalization of a procedure introduced by S. Nose for molecular physics. (orig.)

  16. Structural and functional analysis of glycoprotein butyrylcholinesterase using atomistic molecular dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bernardi, Austen; Faller, Roland

    Atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) has proven to be a powerful tool for studying the structure and dynamics of biological systems on nanosecond to microsecond time scales and nanometer length scales. In this work we study the effects of modifying the glycan distribution on the structure and function of full length monomeric butyrylcholinesterase (BChE). BChE exists as a monomer, dimer, or tetramer, and is a therapeutic glycoprotein with nine asparagine glycosylation sites per monomer. Each monomer acts as a stoichiometric scavenger for organophosphorus (OP) nerve agents (e.g. sarin, soman). Glycan distributions are highly heterogeneous and have been shown experimentally to affect certain glycoproteins' stability and reactivity. We performed structural analysis of various biologically relevant glycoforms of BChE using classical atomistic MD. Functional analysis was performed through binding energy simulations using umbrella sampling with BChE and OP cofactors. Additionally, we assess the quality of the glycans' conformational sampling. We found that the glycan distribution has a significant effect on the structure and function of BChE on timescales available to atomistic MD. This project is funded by the DTRA Grant HDTRA1-15-1-0054.

  17. Statistical Measures to Quantify Similarity between Molecular Dynamics Simulation Trajectories

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jenny Farmer

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Molecular dynamics simulation is commonly employed to explore protein dynamics. Despite the disparate timescales between functional mechanisms and molecular dynamics (MD trajectories, functional differences are often inferred from differences in conformational ensembles between two proteins in structure-function studies that investigate the effect of mutations. A common measure to quantify differences in dynamics is the root mean square fluctuation (RMSF about the average position of residues defined by C α -atoms. Using six MD trajectories describing three native/mutant pairs of beta-lactamase, we make comparisons with additional measures that include Jensen-Shannon, modifications of Kullback-Leibler divergence, and local p-values from 1-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests. These additional measures require knowing a probability density function, which we estimate by using a nonparametric maximum entropy method that quantifies rare events well. The same measures are applied to distance fluctuations between C α -atom pairs. Results from several implementations for quantitative comparison of a pair of MD trajectories are made based on fluctuations for on-residue and residue-residue local dynamics. We conclude that there is almost always a statistically significant difference between pairs of 100 ns all-atom simulations on moderate-sized proteins as evident from extraordinarily low p-values.

  18. Liquid-vapor coexistence by molecular dynamics simulation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Baranyai, Andras; Cummings, Peter T.

    2000-01-01

    We present a simple and consistent molecular dynamics algorithm for determining the equilibrium properties of a bulk liquid and its coexisting vapor phase. The simulation follows the dynamics of the two systems simultaneously while maintaining the volume and the number of particles of the composite system fixed. The thermostat can constrain either the total energy or the temperature at a desired value. Division of the extensive properties between the two phases is governed by the difference of the corresponding intensive state variables. Particle numbers are continuous variables and vary only in virtual sense, i.e., the real sizes of the two systems are the same and do not change during the course of the simulation. Calculation of the chemical potential is separate from the dynamics; thus, one can replace the particle exchange step with other method if it improves the efficiency of the code. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics

  19. Fast analysis of molecular dynamics trajectories with graphics processing units-Radial distribution function histogramming

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Levine, Benjamin G.; Stone, John E.; Kohlmeyer, Axel

    2011-01-01

    The calculation of radial distribution functions (RDFs) from molecular dynamics trajectory data is a common and computationally expensive analysis task. The rate limiting step in the calculation of the RDF is building a histogram of the distance between atom pairs in each trajectory frame. Here we present an implementation of this histogramming scheme for multiple graphics processing units (GPUs). The algorithm features a tiling scheme to maximize the reuse of data at the fastest levels of the GPU's memory hierarchy and dynamic load balancing to allow high performance on heterogeneous configurations of GPUs. Several versions of the RDF algorithm are presented, utilizing the specific hardware features found on different generations of GPUs. We take advantage of larger shared memory and atomic memory operations available on state-of-the-art GPUs to accelerate the code significantly. The use of atomic memory operations allows the fast, limited-capacity on-chip memory to be used much more efficiently, resulting in a fivefold increase in performance compared to the version of the algorithm without atomic operations. The ultimate version of the algorithm running in parallel on four NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) GPUs was found to be 92 times faster than a multithreaded implementation running on an Intel Xeon 5550 CPU. On this multi-GPU hardware, the RDF between two selections of 1,000,000 atoms each can be calculated in 26.9 s per frame. The multi-GPU RDF algorithms described here are implemented in VMD, a widely used and freely available software package for molecular dynamics visualization and analysis.

  20. Comparative Investigation of Normal Modes and Molecular Dynamics of Hepatitis C NS5B Protein

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Asafi, M S; Tekpinar, M; Yildirim, A

    2016-01-01

    Understanding dynamics of proteins has many practical implications in terms of finding a cure for many protein related diseases. Normal mode analysis and molecular dynamics methods are widely used physics-based computational methods for investigating dynamics of proteins. In this work, we studied dynamics of Hepatitis C NS5B protein with molecular dynamics and normal mode analysis. Principal components obtained from a 100 nanoseconds molecular dynamics simulation show good overlaps with normal modes calculated with a coarse-grained elastic network model. Coarse-grained normal mode analysis takes at least an order of magnitude shorter time. Encouraged by this good overlaps and short computation times, we analyzed further low frequency normal modes of Hepatitis C NS5B. Motion directions and average spatial fluctuations have been analyzed in detail. Finally, biological implications of these motions in drug design efforts against Hepatitis C infections have been elaborated. (paper)

  1. Molecular dynamics simulation of ribosome jam

    KAUST Repository

    Matsumoto, Shigenori

    2011-09-01

    We propose a coarse-grained molecular dynamics model of ribosome molecules to study the dependence of translation process on environmental parameters. We found the model exhibits traffic jam property, which is consistent with an ASEP model. We estimated the influence of the temperature and concentration of molecules on the hopping probability used in the ASEP model. Our model can also treat environmental effects on the translation process that cannot be explained by such cellular automaton models. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. Structure and dynamics of photosynthetic proteins studied by neutron scattering and molecular dynamic simulation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dellerue, Serge

    2000-01-01

    Understand the structure-dynamics-function relation in the case of proteins is essential. But few experimental techniques allow to have access to knowledge of fast internal movements of biological macromolecules. With the neutron scattering method, it has been possible to study the reorientation dynamics of side chains and of polypeptide skeleton for two proteins in terms of water or detergent and of temperature. With the use of the molecular dynamics method, essential for completing and interpreting the experimental data, it has been possible to assess the different contributions of the whole structure of proteins to the overall dynamics. It has been shown that the polypeptide skeleton presents an energy relaxation comparable to those of the side chains. Moreover, it has been explained that the protein dynamics can only be understood in terms of relaxation time distribution. (author) [fr

  3. Multiscale Modeling using Molecular Dynamics and Dual Domain Material Point Method

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dhakal, Tilak Raj [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). Theoretical Division. Fluid Dynamics and Solid Mechanics Group, T-3; Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)

    2016-07-07

    For problems involving large material deformation rate, the material deformation time scale can be shorter than the material takes to reach a thermodynamical equilibrium. For such problems, it is difficult to obtain a constitutive relation. History dependency become important because of thermodynamic non-equilibrium. Our goal is to build a multi-scale numerical method which can bypass the need for a constitutive relation. In conclusion, multi-scale simulation method is developed based on the dual domain material point (DDMP). Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is performed to calculate stress. Since the communication among material points is not necessary, the computation can be done embarrassingly parallel in CPU-GPU platform.

  4. The Design, Synthesis, and Study of Solid-State Molecular Rotors: Structure/Function Relationships for Condensed-Phase Anisotropic Dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vogelsberg, Cortnie Sue

    Amphidynamic crystals are an extremely promising platform for the development of artificial molecular machines and stimuli-responsive materials. In analogy to skeletal muscle, their function will rely upon the collective operation of many densely packed molecular machines (i.e. actin-bound myosin) that are self-assembled in a highly organized anisotropic medium. By choosing lattice-forming elements and moving "parts" with specific functionalities, individual molecular machines may be synthesized and self-assembled in order to carry out desirable functions. In recent years, efforts in the design of amphidynamic materials based on molecular gyroscopes and compasses have shown that a certain amount of free volume is essential to facilitate internal rotation and reorientation within a crystal. In order to further establish structure/function relationships to advance the development of increasingly complex molecular machinery, molecular rotors and a molecular "spinning" top were synthesized and incorporated into a variety of solid-state architectures with different degrees of periodicity, dimensionality, and free volume. Specifically, lamellar molecular crystals, hierarchically ordered periodic mesoporous organosilicas, and metal-organic frameworks were targeted for the development of solid-state molecular machines. Using an array of solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy techniques, the dynamic properties of these novel molecular machine assemblies were determined and correlated with their corresponding structural features. It was found that architecture type has a profound influence on functional dynamics. The study of layered molecular crystals, composed of either molecular rotors or "spinning" tops, probed functional dynamics within dense, highly organized environments. From their study, it was discovered that: 1) crystallographically distinct sites may be utilized to differentiate machine function, 2) halogen bonding interactions are sufficiently

  5. POLYANA-A tool for the calculation of molecular radial distribution functions based on Molecular Dynamics trajectories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dimitroulis, Christos; Raptis, Theophanes; Raptis, Vasilios

    2015-12-01

    We present an application for the calculation of radial distribution functions for molecular centres of mass, based on trajectories generated by molecular simulation methods (Molecular Dynamics, Monte Carlo). When designing this application, the emphasis was placed on ease of use as well as ease of further development. In its current version, the program can read trajectories generated by the well-known DL_POLY package, but it can be easily extended to handle other formats. It is also very easy to 'hack' the program so it can compute intermolecular radial distribution functions for groups of interaction sites rather than whole molecules.

  6. Molecular Dynamics with Helical Periodic Boundary Conditions

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Kessler, Jiří; Bouř, Petr

    2014-01-01

    Roč. 35, č. 21 (2014), s. 1552-1559 ISSN 0192-8651 R&D Projects: GA ČR GAP208/11/0105; GA MŠk(CZ) LH11033 Grant - others:GA AV ČR(CZ) M200551205; GA MŠk(CZ) LM2010005 Institutional support: RVO:61388963 Keywords : periodic boundary conditions * helical symmetry * molecular dynamics * protein structure * amyloid fibrils Subject RIV: CF - Physical ; Theoretical Chemistry Impact factor: 3.589, year: 2014

  7. A molecular dynamics simulation study of chloroform

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tironi, Ilario G.; van Gunsteren, Wilfred F.

    Three different chloroform models have been investigated using molecular dynamics computer simulation. The thermodynamic, structural and dynamic properties of the various models were investigated in detail. In particular, the potential energies, diffusion coefficients and rotational correlation times obtained for each model are compared with experiment. It is found that the theory of rotational Brownian motion fails in describing the rotational diffusion of chloroform. The force field of Dietz and Heinzinger was found to give good overall agreement with experiment. An extended investigation of this chloroform model has been performed. Values are reported for the isothermal compressibility, the thermal expansion coefficient and the constant volume heat capacity. The values agree well with experiment. The static and frequency dependent dielectric permittivity were computed from a 1·2 ns simulation conducted under reaction field boundary conditions. Considering the fact that the model is rigid with fixed partial charges, the static dielectric constant and Debye relaxation time compare well with experiment. From the same simulation the shear viscosity was computed using the off-diagonal elements of the pressure tensor, both via an Einstein type relation and via a Green-Kubo equation. The calculated viscosities show good agreement with experimental values. The excess Helmholtz energy is calculated using the thermodynamic integration technique and simulations of 50 and 80 ps. The value obtained for the excess Helmholtz energy matches the theoretical value within a few per cent.

  8. Olefin Metathesis in Peptidomimetics, Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry, and Molecular Imprinting

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Low, Tammy K

    2006-01-01

    .... Our research goals consisted of employing olefin metathesis in the synthesis of peptidomimetics, and studying the feasibility of this method in dynamic combinatorial chemistry and molecular imprinting of nerve agents...

  9. Dynamic Capabilities and Performance

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wilden, Ralf; Gudergan, Siegfried P.; Nielsen, Bo Bernhard

    2013-01-01

    are contingent on the competitive intensity faced by firms. Our findings demonstrate the performance effects of internal alignment between organizational structure and dynamic capabilities, as well as the external fit of dynamic capabilities with competitive intensity. We outline the advantages of PLS...

  10. Molecular Dynamics Simulation of a Membrane/Water Interface : The Ordering of Water and Its Relation to the Hydration Force

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Marrink, Siewert-Jan; Berkowitz, Max; Berendsen, Herman J.C.

    1993-01-01

    In order to obtain a better understanding of the origin of the hydration force, three molecular dynamic simulations of phospholipid/water multilamellar systems were performed. The simulated systems only differed in the amount of interbilayer water, ranging from the minimum to the maximum amount of

  11. Molecular dynamics in high electric fields

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Apostol, M.; Cune, L.C.

    2016-01-01

    Highlights: • New method for rotation molecular spectra in high electric fields. • Parametric resonances – new features in spectra. • New elementary excitations in polar solids from dipolar interaction (“dipolons”). • Discussion about a possible origin of the ferroelectricity from dipolar interactions. - Abstract: Molecular rotation spectra, generated by the coupling of the molecular electric-dipole moments to an external time-dependent electric field, are discussed in a few particular conditions which can be of some experimental interest. First, the spherical-pendulum molecular model is reviewed, with the aim of introducing an approximate method which consists in the separation of the azimuthal and zenithal motions. Second, rotation spectra are considered in the presence of a static electric field. Two particular cases are analyzed, corresponding to strong and weak fields. In both cases the classical motion of the dipoles consists of rotations and vibrations about equilibrium positions; this motion may exhibit parametric resonances. For strong fields a large macroscopic electric polarization may appear. This situation may be relevant for polar matter (like pyroelectrics, ferroelectrics), or for heavy impurities embedded in a polar solid. The dipolar interaction is analyzed in polar condensed matter, where it is shown that new polarization modes appear for a spontaneous macroscopic electric polarization (these modes are tentatively called “dipolons”); one of the polarization modes is related to parametric resonances. The extension of these considerations to magnetic dipoles is briefly discussed. The treatment is extended to strong electric fields which oscillate with a high frequency, as those provided by high-power lasers. It is shown that the effect of such fields on molecular dynamics is governed by a much weaker, effective, renormalized, static electric field.

  12. Decarboxylation of furfural on Pd(111): Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xue, Wenhua; Dang, Hongli; Shields, Darwin; Liu, Yingdi; Jentoft, Friederike; Resasco, Daniel; Wang, Sanwu

    2013-03-01

    Furfural conversion over metal catalysts plays an important role in the studies of biomass-derived feedstocks. We report ab initio molecular dynamics simulations for the decarboxylation process of furfural on the palladium surface at finite temperatures. We observed and analyzed the atomic-scale dynamics of furfural on the Pd(111) surface and the fluctuations of the bondlengths between the atoms in furfural. We found that the dominant bonding structure is the parallel structure in which the furfural plane, while slightly distorted, is parallel to the Pd surface. Analysis of the bondlength fluctuations indicates that the C-H bond is the aldehyde group of a furfural molecule is likely to be broken first, while the C =O bond has a tendency to be isolated as CO. Our results show that the reaction of decarbonylation dominates, consistent with the experimental measurements. Supported by DOE (DE-SC0004600). Simulations and calculations were performed on XSEDE's and NERSC's supercomputers.

  13. Brittle versus ductile behaviour of nanotwinned copper: A molecular dynamics study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pei, Linqing; Lu, Cheng; Zhao, Xing; Zhang, Liang; Cheng, Kuiyu; Michal, Guillaume; Tieu, Kiet

    2015-01-01

    Nanotwinned copper (Cu) exhibits an unusual combination of ultra-high yield strength and high ductility. A brittle-to-ductile transition was previously experimentally observed in nanotwinned Cu despite Cu being an intrinsically ductile metal. However, the atomic mechanisms responsible for brittle fracture and ductile fracture in nanotwinned Cu are still not clear. In this study, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations at different temperatures have been performed to investigate the fracture behaviour of a nanotwinned Cu specimen with a single-edge-notched crack whose surface coincides with a twin boundary. Three temperature ranges are identified, indicative of distinct fracture regimes, under tensile straining perpendicular to the twin boundary. Below 1.1 K, the crack propagates in a brittle fashion. Between 2 K and 30 K a dynamic brittle-to-ductile transition is observed. Above 40 K the crack propagates in a ductile mode. A detailed analysis has been carried out to understand the atomic fracture mechanism in each fracture regime

  14. Molecular dynamics of the structure and thermodynamics of dusty ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The static structure and thermodynamic properties of two-dimensional dusty plasma are analyzed for some typical values of coupling and screening parameters using classical molecular dynamics. Radial distribution function and static structure factor are computed. The radial distribution functions display the typical ...

  15. Multiscale Molecular Dynamics Model for Heterogeneous Charged Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stanton, L. G.; Glosli, J. N.; Murillo, M. S.

    2018-04-01

    Modeling matter across large length scales and timescales using molecular dynamics simulations poses significant challenges. These challenges are typically addressed through the use of precomputed pair potentials that depend on thermodynamic properties like temperature and density; however, many scenarios of interest involve spatiotemporal variations in these properties, and such variations can violate assumptions made in constructing these potentials, thus precluding their use. In particular, when a system is strongly heterogeneous, most of the usual simplifying assumptions (e.g., spherical potentials) do not apply. Here, we present a multiscale approach to orbital-free density functional theory molecular dynamics (OFDFT-MD) simulations that bridges atomic, interionic, and continuum length scales to allow for variations in hydrodynamic quantities in a consistent way. Our multiscale approach enables simulations on the order of micron length scales and 10's of picosecond timescales, which exceeds current OFDFT-MD simulations by many orders of magnitude. This new capability is then used to study the heterogeneous, nonequilibrium dynamics of a heated interface characteristic of an inertial-confinement-fusion capsule containing a plastic ablator near a fuel layer composed of deuterium-tritium ice. At these scales, fundamental assumptions of continuum models are explored; features such as the separation of the momentum fields among the species and strong hydrogen jetting from the plastic into the fuel region are observed, which had previously not been seen in hydrodynamic simulations.

  16. Lipid Configurations from Molecular Dynamics Simulations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pezeshkian, Weria; Khandelia, Himanshu; Marsh, Derek

    2018-01-01

    of dihedral angles in palmitoyl-oleoyl phosphatidylcholine from molecular dynamics simulations of hydrated fluid bilayer membranes. We compare results from the widely used lipid force field of Berger et al. with those from the most recent C36 release of the CHARMM force field for lipids. Only the CHARMM force......The extent to which current force fields faithfully reproduce conformational properties of lipids in bilayer membranes, and whether these reflect the structural principles established for phospholipids in bilayer crystals, are central to biomembrane simulations. We determine the distribution...

  17. Crystallisation of a Lennard-Jones fluid by large scale molecular dynamics simulation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Snook, I.

    1998-01-01

    Full text: The evolution of the structure of a large system of atoms interacting via a Lennard-Jones pair potential was simulated by the use of the Molecular Dynamics computer simulation technique. The system was initially equilibrated in the one phase region of the phase diagram at a temperature above critical then a temperature quench was performed which placed the system in a region were the single fluid phase was unstable. Quenches to below the triple point temperature gave rise to crystallisation The mechanism and final morphology is shown to depend strongly on the starting conditions e.g. the starting density

  18. A multilevel-skin neighbor list algorithm for molecular dynamics simulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Chenglong; Zhao, Mingcan; Hou, Chaofeng; Ge, Wei

    2018-01-01

    Searching of the interaction pairs and organization of the interaction processes are important steps in molecular dynamics (MD) algorithms and are critical to the overall efficiency of the simulation. Neighbor lists are widely used for these steps, where thicker skin can reduce the frequency of list updating but is discounted by more computation in distance check for the particle pairs. In this paper, we propose a new neighbor-list-based algorithm with a precisely designed multilevel skin which can reduce unnecessary computation on inter-particle distances. The performance advantages over traditional methods are then analyzed against the main simulation parameters on Intel CPUs and MICs (many integrated cores), and are clearly demonstrated. The algorithm can be generalized for various discrete simulations using neighbor lists.

  19. Temperature dependent dynamics of DegP-trimer: A molecular dynamics study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nivedita Rai

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available DegP is a heat shock protein from high temperature requirement protease A family, which reacts to the environmental stress conditions in an ATP independent way. The objective of the present analysis emerged from the temperature dependent functional diversity of DegP between chaperonic and protease activities at temperatures below and above 28 °C, respectively. DegP is a multimeric protein and the minimal functional unit, DegP-trimer, is of great importance in understanding the DegP pathway. The structural aspects of DegP-trimer with respect to temperature variation have been studied using molecular dynamics simulations (for 100 ns and principal component analysis to highlight the temperature dependent dynamics facilitating its functional diversity. The DegP-trimer revealed a pronounced dynamics at both 280 and 320 K, when compared to the dynamics observed at 300 K. The LA loop is identified as the highly flexible region during dynamics and at extreme temperatures, the residues 46–80 of LA loop express a flip towards right (at 280 and left ( at 320 K with respect to the fixed β-sheet connecting the LA loop of protease for which Phe46 acts as one of the key residues. Such dynamics of LA loop facilitates inter-monomeric interaction with the PDZ1 domain of the neighbouring monomer and explains its active participation when DegP exists as trimer. Hence, the LA loop mediated dynamics of DegP-trimer is expected to provide further insight into the temperature dependent dynamics of DegP towards the understanding of its assembly and functional diversity in the presence of substrate.

  20. Optimal identification of semi-rigid domains in macromolecules from molecular dynamics simulation.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stefan Bernhard

    Full Text Available Biological function relies on the fact that biomolecules can switch between different conformations and aggregation states. Such transitions involve a rearrangement of parts of the biomolecules involved that act as dynamic domains. The reliable identification of such domains is thus a key problem in biophysics. In this work we present a method to identify semi-rigid domains based on dynamical data that can be obtained from molecular dynamics simulations or experiments. To this end the average inter-atomic distance-deviations are computed. The resulting matrix is then clustered by a constrained quadratic optimization problem. The reliability and performance of the method are demonstrated for two artificial peptides. Furthermore we correlate the mechanical properties with biological malfunction in three variants of amyloidogenic transthyretin protein, where the method reveals that a pathological mutation destabilizes the natural dimer structure of the protein. Finally the method is used to identify functional domains of the GroEL-GroES chaperone, thus illustrating the efficiency of the method for large biomolecular machines.

  1. The dance of molecules: new dynamical perspectives on highly excited molecular vibrations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kellman, Michael E; Tyng, Vivian

    2007-04-01

    At low energies, molecular vibrational motion is described by the normal modes model. This model breaks down at higher energy, with strong coupling between normal modes and onset of chaotic dynamics. New anharmonic modes are born in bifurcations, or branchings of the normal modes. Knowledge of these new modes is obtained through the window of frequency-domain spectroscopy, using techniques of nonlinear classical dynamics. It may soon be possible to "watch" molecular rearrangement reactions spectroscopically. Connections are being made with reaction rate theories, condensed phase systems, and motions of electrons in quantum dots.

  2. Structural, dynamical, and electronic properties of amorphous silicon: An ab initio molecular dynamics study

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Car, R.; Parrinello, M.

    1988-01-18

    An amorphous silicon structure is obtained with a computer simulation based on a new molecular-dynamics technique in which the interatomic potential is derived from a parameter-free quantum mechanical method. Our results for the atomic structure, the phonon spectrum, and the electronic properties are in excellent agreement with experiment. In addition we study details of the microscopic dynamics which are not directly accessible to experiment. We find in particular that structural defects are associated with weak bonds. These may give rise to low-frequency vibrational modes.

  3. Control of the dynamics of coupled atomic-molecular Bose-Einstein condensates: Modified Gross-Pitaevskii approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gupta, Moumita; Dastidar, Krishna Rai

    2009-01-01

    We study the dynamics of the atomic and molecular Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of 87 Rb in a spherically symmetric trap coupled by stimulated Raman photoassociation process. Considering the higher order nonlinearity in the atom-atom interaction we analyze the dynamics of the system using coupled modified Gross-Pitaevskii (MGP) equations and compare it with mean-field coupled Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) dynamics. Considerable differences in the dynamics are obtained in these two approaches at large scattering length, i.e., for large values of peak-gas parameter x pk ≥10 -3 . We show how the dynamics of the coupled system is affected when the atom-molecule and molecule-molecule interactions are considered together with the atom-atom interaction and also when the strengths of these three interactions are increased. The effect of detuning on the efficiency of conversion of atomic fractions into molecules is demonstrated and the feasibility of maximum molecular BEC formation by varying the Raman detuning parameter at different values of time is explored. Thus by varying the Raman detuning and the scattering length for atom-atom interaction one can control the dynamics of the coupled atomic-molecular BEC system. We have also solved coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations for atomic to molecular condensate formation through magnetic Feshbach resonance in a BEC of 85 Rb. We found similar features for oscillations between atomic and molecular condensates noted in previous theoretical study and obtained fairly good agreement with the evolution of total atomic condensate observed experimentally.

  4. Development of a model for the rational design of molecular imprinted polymer: Computational approach for combined molecular dynamics/quantum mechanics calculations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dong Cunku; Li Xin; Guo Zechong; Qi Jingyao

    2009-01-01

    A new rational approach for the preparation of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) based on the combination of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and quantum mechanics (QM) calculations is described in this work. Before performing molecular modeling, a virtual library of functional monomers was created containing forty frequently used monomers. The MD simulations were first conducted to screen the top three monomers from virtual library in each porogen-acetonitrile, chloroform and carbon tetrachloride. QM simulations were then performed with an aim to select the optimum monomer and progen solvent in which the QM simulations were carried out; the monomers giving the highest binding energies were chosen as the candidate to prepare MIP in its corresponding solvent. The acetochlor, a widely used herbicide, was chosen as the target analyte. According to the theoretical calculation results, the MIP with acetochlor as template was prepared by emulsion polymerization method using N,N-methylene bisacrylamide (MBAAM) as functional monomer and divinylbenzene (DVB) as cross-linker in chloroform. The synthesized MIP was then tested by equilibrium-adsorption method, and the MIP demonstrated high removal efficiency to the acetochlor. Mulliken charge distribution and 1 H NMR spectroscopy of the synthesized MIP provided insight on the nature of recognition during the imprinting process probing the governing interactions for selective binding site formation at a molecular level. We think the computer simulation method first proposed in this paper is a novel and reliable method for the design and synthesis of MIP.

  5. Molecular dynamics study of the silica-water-SDA interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Szyja, B.M.; Jansen, A.P.J.; Verstraelen, T.; Santen, van R.A.

    2009-01-01

    In this paper we have applied the molecular dynamics simulations in order to analyse the role of the structure directing tetrapropylammonium ions in the aggregation process that leads to silicalite formation. We address the specific question of how the interactions between silica precursor species

  6. MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATIONS OF DISPLACEMENT CASCADES IN MOLYBDENUM

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Smith, Richard Whiting

    2003-01-01

    Molecular dynamics calculations have been employed to simulate displacement cascades in neutron irradiated Mo. A total of 90 simulations were conducted for PKA energies between 1 and 40 keV and temperatures from 298 to 923K. The results suggest very little effect of temperature on final defect count and configuration, but do display a temperature effect on peak defect generation prior to cascade collapse. Cascade efficiency, relative to the NRT model, is computed to lie between 1/4 and 1/3 in agreement with simulations performed on previous systems. There is a tendency for both interstitials and vacancies to cluster together following cascade collapse producing vacancy rich regions surrounded by interstitials. Although coming to rest in close proximity, the point defects comprising the clusters generally do not lie within the nearest neighbor positions of one another, except for the formation of dumbbell di-interstitials. Cascades produced at higher PKA energies (20 or 40 keV) exhibit the formation of subcascades

  7. Molecular dynamics simulation of deformation twin in rocksalt vanadium nitride

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fu, Tao; Peng, Xianghe; Zhao, Yinbo; Li, Tengfei; Li, Qibin; Wang, Zhongchang

    2016-01-01

    We perform molecular dynamics simulation of nano-indentation with a cylindrical indenter to investigate the formation mechanism of deformation twin in vanadium nitride (VN) with a rocksalt structure. We find that the deformation twins occur during the loading stage, and subsequently conduct a systematic analysis of nucleation, propagation and thickening of a deformation twin. We find that the nucleation of a partial dislocation and its propagation to form a stacking fault are premise of deformation twin formation. The sequential nucleation and propagation of partial dislocation on adjacent parallel {111} planes are found to cause the thickening of the deformation twin. Moreover, the deformation twins can exist in VN at room temperature. - Highlights: • MD simulations of indentation are performed to study the deformation twin in VN. • The deformation twins can occur in VN during the loading stage. • The nucleation, propagation and thickening of a deformation twin are analyzed. • The deformation twins can exist in VN at room temperature.

  8. Study of the Mechanical Properties and Vibration Isolation Performance of a Molecular Spring Isolator

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Muchun Yu

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Molecular Spring Isolator (MSI is a novel passive vibration isolation technique, providing High-Static-Low-Dynamic (HSLD stiffness based on the use of molecular spring material. The molecular spring material is a solid-liquid mixture consisting of water and hydrophobic nanoporous materials. Under a certain level of external pressure, water molecules can intrude into the hydrophobic pores of nanoporous materials, developing an additional solid-liquid interface. Such interfaces are able to store, release, and transform mechanical energy, providing properties like mechanical spring. Having been only recently developed, the basic mechanic properties of a MSI have not been studied in depth. This paper focuses on the stiffness influence factors, the dynamic frequency response, and the vibration isolation performance of a MSI; these properties help engineers to design MSIs for different engineering applications. First, the working mechanism of a MSI is introduced from a three-dimensional general view of the water infiltration massive hydrophobic nanoporous pores. Next, a wide range of influence factors on the stiffness properties of MSI are studied. In addition, the frequency response functions (FRFs of the MSI vibration isolation system are studied utilizing the matching method based on equivalent piecewise linear (EPL system. Finally, the vibration isolation properties of MSI are evaluated by force transmissibility.

  9. Molecular dynamics calculation of shear viscosity for molten salt

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Okamoto, Yoshihiro; Yokokawa, Mitsuo; Ogawa, Toru

    1993-12-01

    A computer program of molecular dynamics simulation has been made to calculate shear viscosity of molten salt. Correlation function for an off-diagonal component of stress tensor can be obtained as the results of calculation. Shear viscosity is calculated by integration of the correlation function based on the Kubo-type formula. Shear viscosities for a molten KCl ranging in temperature from 1047K to 1273K were calculated using the program. Calculation of 10 5 steps (1 step corresponds to 5 x 10 -15 s) was performed for each temperature in the 216 ions system. The obtained results were in good agreement with the reported experimental values. The program has been vectorized to achieve a faster computation in supercomputer. It makes possible to calculate the viscosity using a large number of statistics amounting to several million MD steps. (author)

  10. Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Solidification of Pd-Ni Clusters with Different Nickel Content

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chen Gang

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Molecular dynamics simulation has been performed for investigating the glass transition of Pd-Ni alloy nanoparticles in the solidification process. The results showed that the Pd-Ni nanoparticles with composition far from pure metal should form amorphous structure more easily, which is in accordance with the results of the thermodynamic calculation. There are some regular and distorted fivefold symmetry in the amorphous Pd-Ni alloy nanoparticles. The nanoclusters with bigger difference value between formation enthalpies of solutions and glasses will transform to glass more easily than the other Pd-Ni alloy nanoclusters.

  11. Structure impact on the thermal and electronic properties of bismuth telluride by ab-initio and molecular dynamics calculations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Termentzidis, K; Pokropivny, A; Xiong, S-Y; Chumakov, Y; Volz, S; Woda, M; Cortona, P

    2012-01-01

    We use molecular dynamics and ab-initio methods to predict the thermal and electronic properties of new materials with high figures of merit. The simulated systems are bulk bismuth tellurides with antisite and vacancy defects. Optimizations of the materials under investigation are performed by the SIESTA code for subsequent calculations of force constants, electronic properties, and Seebeck coefficients. The prediction of the thermal conductivity is made by Non-Equilibrium Molecular Dynamics (NEMD) using the LAMMPS code. The thermal conductivity of bulk bismuth telluride with different stoichiometry and with a number of substitution defects is calculated. We have found that the thermal conductivity can be decreased by 60% by introducing vacancy defects. The calculated thermal conductivities for the different structures are compared with the available experimental and theoretical results.

  12. Molecular dynamics simulations of diffusion and clustering along critical isotherms of medium-chain n-alkanes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mutoru, J W; Smith, W; O'Hern, C S; Firoozabadi, A

    2013-01-14

    Understanding the transport properties of molecular fluids in the critical region is important for a number of industrial and natural systems. In the literature, there are conflicting reports on the behavior of the self diffusion coefficient D(s) in the critical region of single-component molecular systems. For example, D(s) could decrease to zero, reach a maximum, or remain unchanged and finite at the critical point. Moreover, there is no molecular-scale understanding of the behavior of diffusion coefficients in molecular fluids in the critical regime. We perform extensive molecular dynamics simulations in the critical region of single-component fluids composed of medium-chain n-alkanes-n-pentane, n-decane, and n-dodecane-that interact via anisotropic united-atom potentials. For each system, we calculate D(s), and average molecular cluster sizes κ(cl) and numbers N(cl) at various cluster lifetimes τ, as a function of density ρ in the range 0.2ρ(c) ≤ ρ ≤ 2.0ρ(c) at the critical temperature T(c). We find that D(s) decreases with increasing ρ but remains finite at the critical point. Moreover, for any given τ critical point.

  13. Machine learning molecular dynamics for the simulation of infrared spectra.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gastegger, Michael; Behler, Jörg; Marquetand, Philipp

    2017-10-01

    Machine learning has emerged as an invaluable tool in many research areas. In the present work, we harness this power to predict highly accurate molecular infrared spectra with unprecedented computational efficiency. To account for vibrational anharmonic and dynamical effects - typically neglected by conventional quantum chemistry approaches - we base our machine learning strategy on ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. While these simulations are usually extremely time consuming even for small molecules, we overcome these limitations by leveraging the power of a variety of machine learning techniques, not only accelerating simulations by several orders of magnitude, but also greatly extending the size of systems that can be treated. To this end, we develop a molecular dipole moment model based on environment dependent neural network charges and combine it with the neural network potential approach of Behler and Parrinello. Contrary to the prevalent big data philosophy, we are able to obtain very accurate machine learning models for the prediction of infrared spectra based on only a few hundreds of electronic structure reference points. This is made possible through the use of molecular forces during neural network potential training and the introduction of a fully automated sampling scheme. We demonstrate the power of our machine learning approach by applying it to model the infrared spectra of a methanol molecule, n -alkanes containing up to 200 atoms and the protonated alanine tripeptide, which at the same time represents the first application of machine learning techniques to simulate the dynamics of a peptide. In all of these case studies we find an excellent agreement between the infrared spectra predicted via machine learning models and the respective theoretical and experimental spectra.

  14. MOLECULAR DYNAMICS COMPUTER SIMULATIONS OF MULTIDRUG RND EFFLUX PUMPS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paolo Ruggerone

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available Over-expression of multidrug efflux pumps of the Resistance Nodulation Division (RND protein super family counts among the main causes for microbial resistance against pharmaceuticals. Understanding the molecular basis of this process is one of the major challenges of modern biomedical research, involving a broad range of experimental and computational techniques. Here we review the current state of RND transporter investigation employing molecular dynamics simulations providing conformational samples of transporter components to obtain insights into the functional mechanism underlying efflux pump-mediated antibiotics resistance in Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

  15. Molecular Dynamics Computer Simulations of Multidrug RND Efflux Pumps

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paolo Ruggerone

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available Over-expression of multidrug efflux pumps of the Resistance Nodulation Division (RND protein super family counts among the main causes for microbial resistance against pharmaceuticals. Understanding the molecular basis of this process is one of the major challenges of modern biomedical research, involving a broad range of experimental and computational techniques. Here we review the current state of RND transporter investigation employing molecular dynamics simulations providing conformational samples of transporter components to obtain insights into the functional mechanism underlying efflux pump-mediated antibiotics resistance in Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

  16. Molecular dynamics simulation aiming at interfacial characteristics of polymer chains on nanotubes with different layers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Kun; Gu, Boqin; Zhu, Wanfu

    2017-03-01

    A molecular dynamics (MD) simulations study is performed on multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs)/acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR) composites. The physisorption and interfacial characteristics between the various MWNTs and polymer macromolecular chains are identified. The effects of nanotube layers on the nanotubes/polymer interactions are examined. Each of the situation result and surface features is characterized by binding energy (Eb). It is shown that the binding energy (Eb) increase with the number of layers.

  17. Investigation of nuclear multifragmentation using molecular dynamics and restructured aggregation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Paula, L. de; Nemeth, J.; Ben-Hao, Sa.; Leray, S.; Ngo, C.; Souza, S.R.; Yu-Ming, Zheng; Paula, L. de; Nemeth, J.; Ben-Hao, Sa.; Yu-Ming, Zheng; Ngo, H.

    1991-01-01

    We study the stability of excited 197 Au nuclei with respect to multifragmentation. For that we use a dynamical simulation based on molecular dynamics and restructured aggregation. A particular attention is paid to check the stability of the ground state nuclei generated by the simulation. Four kinds of excitations are considered: heat, compression, rotation and a geometrical instability created when a projectile drills a hole in a 197 Au nucleus

  18. Dynamism in Electronic Performance Support Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laffey, James

    1995-01-01

    Describes a model for dynamic electronic performance support systems based on NNAble, a system developed by the training group at Apple Computer. Principles for designing dynamic performance support are discussed, including a systems approach, performer-centered design, awareness of situated cognition, organizational memory, and technology use.…

  19. Accelerated molecular dynamics methods: introduction and recent developments

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Uberuaga, Blas Pedro [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Voter, Arthur F [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Perez, Danny [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Shim, Y [UNIV OF TOLEDO; Amar, J G [UNIV OF TOLEDO

    2009-01-01

    A long-standing limitation in the use of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is that it can only be applied directly to processes that take place on very short timescales: nanoseconds if empirical potentials are employed, or picoseconds if we rely on electronic structure methods. Many processes of interest in chemistry, biochemistry, and materials science require study over microseconds and beyond, due either to the natural timescale for the evolution or to the duration of the experiment of interest. Ignoring the case of liquids xxx, the dynamics on these time scales is typically characterized by infrequent-event transitions, from state to state, usually involving an energy barrier. There is a long and venerable tradition in chemistry of using transition state theory (TST) [10, 19, 23] to directly compute rate constants for these kinds of activated processes. If needed dynamical corrections to the TST rate, and even quantum corrections, can be computed to achieve an accuracy suitable for the problem at hand. These rate constants then allow them to understand the system behavior on longer time scales than we can directly reach with MD. For complex systems with many reaction paths, the TST rates can be fed into a stochastic simulation procedure such as kinetic Monte Carlo xxx, and a direct simulation of the advance of the system through its possible states can be obtained in a probabilistically exact way. A problem that has become more evident in recent years, however, is that for many systems of interest there is a complexity that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to determine all the relevant reaction paths to which TST should be applied. This is a serious issue, as omitted transition pathways can have uncontrollable consequences on the simulated long-time kinetics. Over the last decade or so, we have been developing a new class of methods for treating the long-time dynamics in these complex, infrequent-event systems. Rather than trying to guess in advance what

  20. Accelerated molecular dynamics methods: introduction and recent developments

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Uberuaga, Blas Pedro; Voter, Arthur F.; Perez, Danny; Shim, Y.; Amar, J.G.

    2009-01-01

    A long-standing limitation in the use of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is that it can only be applied directly to processes that take place on very short timescales: nanoseconds if empirical potentials are employed, or picoseconds if we rely on electronic structure methods. Many processes of interest in chemistry, biochemistry, and materials science require study over microseconds and beyond, due either to the natural timescale for the evolution or to the duration of the experiment of interest. Ignoring the case of liquids xxx, the dynamics on these time scales is typically characterized by infrequent-event transitions, from state to state, usually involving an energy barrier. There is a long and venerable tradition in chemistry of using transition state theory (TST) (10, 19, 23) to directly compute rate constants for these kinds of activated processes. If needed dynamical corrections to the TST rate, and even quantum corrections, can be computed to achieve an accuracy suitable for the problem at hand. These rate constants then allow them to understand the system behavior on longer time scales than we can directly reach with MD. For complex systems with many reaction paths, the TST rates can be fed into a stochastic simulation procedure such as kinetic Monte Carlo xxx, and a direct simulation of the advance of the system through its possible states can be obtained in a probabilistically exact way. A problem that has become more evident in recent years, however, is that for many systems of interest there is a complexity that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to determine all the relevant reaction paths to which TST should be applied. This is a serious issue, as omitted transition pathways can have uncontrollable consequences on the simulated long-time kinetics. Over the last decade or so, we have been developing a new class of methods for treating the long-time dynamics in these complex, infrequent-event systems. Rather than trying to guess in advance what

  1. Excipient-assisted vinpocetine nanoparticles: experiments and molecular dynamic simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Cai-Xia; Wang, Hao-Bo; Oppong, Daniel; Wang, Jie-Xin; Chen, Jian-Feng; Le, Yuan

    2014-11-03

    Hydrophilic excipients can be used to increase the solubility and bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs. In this work, the conventional water-soluble pharmaceutical excipients hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (HPMC), polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), and lactose (LAC) were used as solid supports to prevent drug nanoparticles from aggregation and enhance drug dissolution. Excipient-assisted vinpocetine (VIN) nanoparticles were prepared by reactive precipitation. The analysis results indicated that HPMC was a suitable excipient to prepare VIN nanoparticles. VIN/HPMC nanoparticles had a mean size of 130 nm within a narrow distribution. The dissolution rate of VIN nanoparticles was significantly faster than those of a physical mixture of VIN/HPMC and raw VIN. VIN/HPMC nanoparticles had a higher dissolution profile than VIN/PVP and VIN/LAC nanoparticles. Besides, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation was applied to investigate the molecular interactions between VIN and excipients. The calculated results revealed that VIN interacted with excipients by Coulomb and Lennard-Jones (LJ) interactions. Few hydrogen bonds were formed between VIN and excipients. The HPMC affording smaller particle size may be a result of the stronger interactions between VIN and HPMC (mainly LJ interaction) and the property of HPMC. These characteristics may greatly influence the adsorption behavior and may be the crucial parameter for the better performance of HPMC.

  2. Statistical ensembles and molecular dynamics studies of anisotropic solids. II

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ray, J.R.; Rahman, A.

    1985-01-01

    We have recently discussed how the Parrinello--Rahman theory can be brought into accord with the theory of the elastic and thermodynamic behavior of anisotropic media. This involves the isoenthalpic--isotension ensemble of statistical mechanics. Nose has developed a canonical ensemble form of molecular dynamics. We combine Nose's ideas with the Parrinello--Rahman theory to obtain a canonical form of molecular dynamics appropriate to the study of anisotropic media subjected to arbitrary external stress. We employ this isothermal--isotension ensemble in a study of a fcc→ close-packed structural phase transformation in a Lennard-Jones solid subjected to uniaxial compression. Our interpretation of the Nose theory does not involve a scaling of the time variable. This latter fact leads to simplifications when studying the time dependence of quantities

  3. Quantitative performance characterization of three-dimensional noncontact fluorescence molecular tomography

    Science.gov (United States)

    Favicchio, Rosy; Psycharakis, Stylianos; Schönig, Kai; Bartsch, Dusan; Mamalaki, Clio; Papamatheakis, Joseph; Ripoll, Jorge; Zacharakis, Giannis

    2016-02-01

    Fluorescent proteins and dyes are routine tools for biological research to describe the behavior of genes, proteins, and cells, as well as more complex physiological dynamics such as vessel permeability and pharmacokinetics. The use of these probes in whole body in vivo imaging would allow extending the range and scope of current biomedical applications and would be of great interest. In order to comply with a wide variety of application demands, in vivo imaging platform requirements span from wide spectral coverage to precise quantification capabilities. Fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) detects and reconstructs in three dimensions the distribution of a fluorophore in vivo. Noncontact FMT allows fast scanning of an excitation source and noninvasive measurement of emitted fluorescent light using a virtual array detector operating in free space. Here, a rigorous process is defined that fully characterizes the performance of a custom-built horizontal noncontact FMT setup. Dynamic range, sensitivity, and quantitative accuracy across the visible spectrum were evaluated using fluorophores with emissions between 520 and 660 nm. These results demonstrate that high-performance quantitative three-dimensional visible light FMT allowed the detection of challenging mesenteric lymph nodes in vivo and the comparison of spectrally distinct fluorescent reporters in cell culture.

  4. Effect of molecular properties on the performance of polymer light-emitting diodes

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ramos, Marta M.D.; Almeida, A.M.; Correia, Helena M.G.; Ribeiro, R. Mendes; Stoneham, A.M

    2004-11-15

    The performance of a single layer polymer light-emitting diode depends on several interdependent factors, although recombination between electrons and holes within the polymer layer is believed to play an important role. Our aim is to carry out computer experiments in which bipolar charge carriers are injected in polymer networks made of poly(p-phenylene vinylene) chains randomly oriented. In these simulations, we follow the charge evolution in time from some initial state to the steady state. The intra-molecular properties of the polymer molecules obtained from self-consistent quantum molecular dynamics calculations are used in the mesoscopic model. The purpose of the present work is to clarify the effects of intra-molecular charge mobility and energy disorder on recombination efficiency. In particular, we find that charge mobility along the polymer chains has a serious influence on recombination within the polymer layer. Our results also show that energy disorder due to differences in ionization potential and electron affinity of neighbouring molecules affects mainly recombinations that occur near the electrodes at polymer chains parallel to them.

  5. Effect of molecular properties on the performance of polymer light-emitting diodes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ramos, Marta M.D.; Almeida, A.M.; Correia, Helena M.G.; Ribeiro, R. Mendes; Stoneham, A.M.

    2004-01-01

    The performance of a single layer polymer light-emitting diode depends on several interdependent factors, although recombination between electrons and holes within the polymer layer is believed to play an important role. Our aim is to carry out computer experiments in which bipolar charge carriers are injected in polymer networks made of poly(p-phenylene vinylene) chains randomly oriented. In these simulations, we follow the charge evolution in time from some initial state to the steady state. The intra-molecular properties of the polymer molecules obtained from self-consistent quantum molecular dynamics calculations are used in the mesoscopic model. The purpose of the present work is to clarify the effects of intra-molecular charge mobility and energy disorder on recombination efficiency. In particular, we find that charge mobility along the polymer chains has a serious influence on recombination within the polymer layer. Our results also show that energy disorder due to differences in ionization potential and electron affinity of neighbouring molecules affects mainly recombinations that occur near the electrodes at polymer chains parallel to them

  6. Computational study of the activity, dynamics, energetics and conformations of insulin analogues using molecular dynamics simulations: Application to hyperinsulinemia and the critical residue B26

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anastasios Papaioannou

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Due to the increasing prevalence of diabetes, finding therapeutic analogues for insulin has become an urgent issue. While many experimental studies have been performed towards this end, they have limited scope to examine all aspects of the effect of a mutation. Computational studies can help to overcome these limitations, however, relatively few studies that focus on insulin analogues have been performed to date. Here, we present a comprehensive computational study of insulin analogues—three mutant insulins that have been identified with hyperinsulinemia and three mutations on the critical B26 residue that exhibit similar binding affinity to the insulin receptor—using molecular dynamics simulations with the aim of predicting how mutations of insulin affect its activity, dynamics, energetics and conformations. The time evolution of the conformers is studied in long simulations. The probability density function and potential of mean force calculations are performed on each insulin analogue to unravel the effect of mutations on the dynamics and energetics of insulin activation. Our conformational study can decrypt the key features and molecular mechanisms that are responsible for an enhanced or reduced activity of an insulin analogue. We find two key results: 1 hyperinsulinemia may be due to the drastically reduced activity (and binding affinity of the mutant insulins. 2 Y26BS and Y26BE are promising therapeutic candidates for insulin as they are more active than WT-insulin. The analysis in this work can be readily applied to any set of mutations on insulin to guide development of more effective therapeutic analogues.

  7. Temperature specification in atomistic molecular dynamics and its impact on simulation efficacy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ocaya, R. O.; Terblans, J. J.

    2017-10-01

    Temperature is a vital thermodynamical function for physical systems. Knowledge of system temperature permits assessment of system ergodicity, entropy, system state and stability. Rapid theoretical and computational developments in the fields of condensed matter physics, chemistry, material science, molecular biology, nanotechnology and others necessitate clarity in the temperature specification. Temperature-based materials simulations, both standalone and distributed computing, are projected to grow in prominence over diverse research fields. In this article we discuss the apparent variability of temperature modeling formalisms used currently in atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, with respect to system energetics,dynamics and structural evolution. Commercial simulation programs, which by nature are heuristic, do not openly discuss this fundamental question. We address temperature specification in the context of atomistic molecular dynamics. We define a thermostat at 400K relative to a heat bath at 300K firstly using a modified ab-initio Newtonian method, and secondly using a Monte-Carlo method. The thermostatic vacancy formation and cohesion energies, equilibrium lattice constant for FCC copper is then calculated. Finally we compare and contrast the results.

  8. Reliable Approximation of Long Relaxation Timescales in Molecular Dynamics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wei Zhang

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Many interesting rare events in molecular systems, like ligand association, protein folding or conformational changes, occur on timescales that often are not accessible by direct numerical simulation. Therefore, rare event approximation approaches like interface sampling, Markov state model building, or advanced reaction coordinate-based free energy estimation have attracted huge attention recently. In this article we analyze the reliability of such approaches. How precise is an estimate of long relaxation timescales of molecular systems resulting from various forms of rare event approximation methods? Our results give a theoretical answer to this question by relating it with the transfer operator approach to molecular dynamics. By doing so we also allow for understanding deep connections between the different approaches.

  9. Molecular Dynamics Approach in Designing Thermostable Aspergillus niger Xylanase

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malau, N. D.; Sianturi, M.

    2017-03-01

    Molecular dynamics methods we have applied as a tool in designing thermostable Aspergillus niger Xylanase, by examining Root Mean Square Deviation (RMSD) and The Stability of the Secondary Structure of enzymes structure at its optimum temperature and compare with its high temperature behavior. As RMSD represents structural fluctuation at a particular temperature, a better understanding of this factor will suggest approaches to bioengineer these enzymes to enhance their thermostability. In this work molecular dynamic simulations of Aspergillus niger xylanase (ANX) have been carried at 400K (optimum catalytic temperature) for 2.5 ns and 500K (ANX reported inactive temperature) for 2.5 ns. Analysis have shown that the Root Mean Square Deviation (RMSD) significant increase at higher temperatures compared at optimum temperature and some of the secondary structures of ANX that have been damaged at high temperature. Structural analysis revealed that the fluctuations of the α-helix and β-sheet regions are larger at higher temperatures compared to the fluctuations at optimum temperature.

  10. A new parallel molecular dynamics algorithm for organic systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Plimpton, S.; Hendrickson, B.; Heffelfinger, G.

    1993-01-01

    A new parallel algorithm for simulating bonded molecular systems such as polymers and proteins by molecular dynamics (MD) is presented. In contrast to methods that extract parallelism by breaking the spatial domain into sub-pieces, the new method does not require regular geometries or uniform particle densities to achieve high parallel efficiency. For very large, regular systems spatial methods are often the best choice, but in practice the new method is faster for systems with tens-of-thousands of atoms simulated on large numbers of processors. It is also several times faster than the techniques commonly used for parallelizing bonded MD that assign a subset of atoms to each processor and require all-to-all communication. Implementation of the algorithm in a CHARMm-like MD model with many body forces and constraint dynamics is discussed and timings on the Intel Delta and Paragon machines are given. Example calculations using the algorithm in simulations of polymers and liquid-crystal molecules will also be briefly discussed

  11. Molecular Dynamics Simulations of displacement cascades in metallic systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Doan, N.V.; Tietze, H.

    1995-01-01

    We use Molecular Dynamics Computer Simulations to investigate defect production induced by energetic displacement cascades up to 10 keV in pure metals (Cu, Ni) and in ordered intermetallic alloys NiAl, Ni 3 Al. Various model potentials were employed to describe the many-body nature of the interactions: the RGL (Rosato-Guillope-Legrand) model was used in pure Cu and Ni simulations; the modified version of the Vitek, Ackland and Cserti potentials (due to Gao, Bacon and Ackland) in Ni 3 Al and the EAM potentials of Foiles and Daw modified by Rubini and Ballone in NiAl, Ni 3 Al were used in alloy simulations. Atomic mixing and disordering were studied into details owing to imaging techniques and determined at different phases of the cascades. Some mixing mechanisms were identified. Our results were compared with existing data and those obtained by similar Molecular Dynamics Simulations available in the literature. (orig.)

  12. Ultrafast dissociation: An unexpected tool for probing molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Morin, Paul; Miron, Catalin

    2012-01-01

    Highlights: ► Ultrafast dissociation has been investigated by means of XPS and mass spectrometry. ► The interplay between electron relaxation and molecular dynamics is evidenced. ► Extension toward polyatomics, clusters, adsorbed molecules is considered. ► Quantum effects (spectral hole, angular effects) evidence the molecular field anisotropy. -- Abstract: Ultrafast dissociation following core–shell excitation into an antibonding orbital led to the early observation in HBr of atomic Auger lines associated to the decay of dissociated excited atoms. The purpose of this article is to review the very large variety of systems where such a situation has been encountered, extending from simple diatomic molecules toward more complex systems like polyatomics, clusters, or adsorbed molecules. Interestingly, this phenomenon has revealed an extremely rich and powerful tool for probing nuclear dynamics and its subtle interplay with electron relaxation occurring on a comparable time scale. Consequently this review covers a surprisingly large period, starting in 1986 and still ongoing.

  13. Dynamic neutron scattering from conformational dynamics. II. Application using molecular dynamics simulation and Markov modeling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yi, Zheng; Lindner, Benjamin; Prinz, Jan-Hendrik; Noé, Frank; Smith, Jeremy C

    2013-11-07

    Neutron scattering experiments directly probe the dynamics of complex molecules on the sub pico- to microsecond time scales. However, the assignment of the relaxations seen experimentally to specific structural rearrangements is difficult, since many of the underlying dynamical processes may exist on similar timescales. In an accompanying article, we present a theoretical approach to the analysis of molecular dynamics simulations with a Markov State Model (MSM) that permits the direct identification of structural transitions leading to each contributing relaxation process. Here, we demonstrate the use of the method by applying it to the configurational dynamics of the well-characterized alanine dipeptide. A practical procedure for deriving the MSM from an MD is introduced. The result is a 9-state MSM in the space of the backbone dihedral angles and the side-chain methyl group. The agreement between the quasielastic spectrum calculated directly from the atomic trajectories and that derived from the Markov state model is excellent. The dependence on the wavevector of the individual Markov processes is described. The procedure means that it is now practicable to interpret quasielastic scattering spectra in terms of well-defined intramolecular transitions with minimal a priori assumptions as to the nature of the dynamics taking place.

  14. Molecular tailoring approach for exploring structures, energetics and ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Administrator

    Keywords. Molecular clusters; linear scaling methods; molecular tailoring approach (MTA); Hartree– ..... energy decomposition analysis also performed and which clearly ... through molecular dynamics simulation furnished by. Takeguchi,. 46.

  15. Numerical modelling of adsorption of metallic particles on graphite substrate via molecular dynamics simulation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rafii-Tabar, H.

    1998-01-01

    A computer-based numerical modelling of the adsorption process of gas phase metallic particles on the surface of a graphite substrate has been performed via the application of molecular dynamics simulation method. The simulation related to an extensive STM-based experiment performed in this field, and reproduces part of the experimental results. Both two-body and many-body inter-atomic potentials have been employed. A Morse-type potential describing the metal-carbon interactions at the interface was specially formulated for this modelling. Intercalation of silver in graphite has been observed as well as the correct alignments of monomers, dimers and two-dimensional islands on the surface. (author)

  16. Hybrid method coupling molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations to study the properties of gases in microchannels and nanochannels

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nedea, S.V.; Frijns, A.J.H.; Steenhoven, van A.A.; Markvoort, Albert. J.; Hilbers, P.A.J.

    2005-01-01

    We combine molecular dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations to study the properties of gas molecules confined between two hard walls of a microchannel or nanochannel. The coupling between MD and MC simulations is introduced by performing MD near the boundaries for accuracy and MC in the bulk

  17. A molecular dynamics simulation code ISIS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kambayashi, Shaw

    1992-06-01

    Computer simulation based on the molecular dynamics (MD) method has become an important tool complementary to experiments and theoretical calculations in a wide range of scientific fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, and so on. In the MD method, the Newtonian equations-of-motion of classical particles are integrated numerically to reproduce a phase-space trajectory of the system. In the 1980's, several new techniques have been developed for simulation at constant-temperature and/or constant-pressure in convenient to compare result of computer simulation with experimental results. We first summarize the MD method for both microcanonical and canonical simulations. Then, we present and overview of a newly developed ISIS (Isokinetic Simulation of Soft-spheres) code and its performance on various computers including vector processors. The ISIS code has a capability to make a MD simulation under constant-temperature condition by using the isokinetic constraint method. The equations-of-motion is integrated by a very accurate fifth-order finite differential algorithm. The bookkeeping method is also utilized to reduce the computational time. Furthermore, the ISIS code is well adopted for vector processing: Speedup ratio ranged from 16 to 24 times is obtained on a VP2600/10 vector processor. (author)

  18. Molecular beam studies of reaction dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lee, Yuan T.

    1991-03-01

    The major thrust of this research project is to elucidate detailed dynamics of simple elementary reactions that are theoretically important and to unravel the mechanism of complex chemical reactions or photochemical processes that play important roles in many macroscopic processes. Molecular beams of reactants are used to study individual reactive encounters between molecules or to monitor photodissociation events in a collision-free environment. Most of the information is derived from measurement of the product fragment energy, angular, and state distributions. Recent activities are centered on the mechanisms of elementary chemical reactions involving oxygen atoms with unsaturated hydrocarbons, the dynamics of endothermic substitution reactions, the dependence of the chemical reactivity of electronically excited atoms on the alignment of excited orbitals, the primary photochemical processes of polyatomic molecules, intramolecular energy transfer of chemically activated and locally excited molecules, the energetics of free radicals that are important to combustion processes, the infrared-absorption spectra of carbonium ions and hydrated hydronium ions, and bond-selective photodissociation through electric excitation

  19. Molecular beam studies of reaction dynamics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lee, Y.T. [Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, CA (United States)

    1993-12-01

    The major thrust of this research project is to elucidate detailed dynamics of simple elementary reactions that are theoretically important and to unravel the mechanism of complex chemical reactions or photochemical processes that play important roles in many macroscopic processes. Molecular beams of reactants are used to study individual reactive encounters between molecules or to monitor photodissociation events in a collision-free environment. Most of the information is derived from measurement of the product fragment energy, angular, and state distributions. Recent activities are centered on the mechanisms of elementary chemical reactions involving oxygen atoms with unsaturated hydrocarbons, the dynamics of endothermic substitution reactions, the dependence of the chemical reactivity of electronically excited atoms on the alignment of excited orbitals, the primary photochemical processes of polyatomic molecules, intramolecular energy transfer of chemically activated and locally excited molecules, the energetics of free radicals that are important to combustion processes, the infrared-absorption spectra of carbonium ions and hydrated hydronium ions, and bond-selective photodissociation through electric excitation.

  20. A molecular dynamics calculation of solid phase of malonic acid ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Sathya S R R Perumal

    Keywords. Hydrogen bond chain; elastic constants; molecular dynamics. 1. Introduction ... theory - a probabilistic model to determine the hydro- gen bonds within the .... compares poorly with the experimental value of 108.5. Similarly β and γ ...

  1. Constant pH molecular dynamics of proteins in explicit solvent with proton tautomerism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goh, Garrett B; Hulbert, Benjamin S; Zhou, Huiqing; Brooks, Charles L

    2014-07-01

    pH is a ubiquitous regulator of biological activity, including protein-folding, protein-protein interactions, and enzymatic activity. Existing constant pH molecular dynamics (CPHMD) models that were developed to address questions related to the pH-dependent properties of proteins are largely based on implicit solvent models. However, implicit solvent models are known to underestimate the desolvation energy of buried charged residues, increasing the error associated with predictions that involve internal ionizable residue that are important in processes like hydrogen transport and electron transfer. Furthermore, discrete water and ions cannot be modeled in implicit solvent, which are important in systems like membrane proteins and ion channels. We report on an explicit solvent constant pH molecular dynamics framework based on multi-site λ-dynamics (CPHMD(MSλD)). In the CPHMD(MSλD) framework, we performed seamless alchemical transitions between protonation and tautomeric states using multi-site λ-dynamics, and designed novel biasing potentials to ensure that the physical end-states are predominantly sampled. We show that explicit solvent CPHMD(MSλD) simulations model realistic pH-dependent properties of proteins such as the Hen-Egg White Lysozyme (HEWL), binding domain of 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase (BBL) and N-terminal domain of ribosomal protein L9 (NTL9), and the pKa predictions are in excellent agreement with experimental values, with a RMSE ranging from 0.72 to 0.84 pKa units. With the recent development of the explicit solvent CPHMD(MSλD) framework for nucleic acids, accurate modeling of pH-dependent properties of both major class of biomolecules-proteins and nucleic acids is now possible. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  2. On the molecular dynamics in the hurricane interactions with its environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meyer, Gabriel; Vitiello, Giuseppe

    2018-06-01

    By resorting to the Burgers model for hurricanes, we study the molecular motion involved in the hurricane dynamics. We show that the Lagrangian canonical formalism requires the inclusion of the environment degrees of freedom. This also allows the description of the motion of charged particles. In view of the role played by moist convection, cumulus and cloud water droplets in the hurricane dynamics, we discuss on the basis of symmetry considerations the role played by the molecular electrical dipoles and the formation of topologically non-trivial structures. The mechanism of energy storage and dissipation, the non-stationary time dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation and the vortex equation are studied. Finally, we discuss the fractal self-similarity properties of hurricanes.

  3. Molecular Structural Transformation of 2:1 Clay Minerals by a Constant-Pressure Molecular Dynamics Simulation Method

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang, J.; Gutierre, M.S.

    2010-01-01

    This paper presents results of a molecular dynamics simulation study of dehydrated 2:1 clay minerals using the Parrinello-Rahman constant-pressure molecular dynamics method. The method is capable of simulating a system under the most general applied stress conditions by considering the changes of MD cell size and shape. Given the advantage of the method, it is the major goal of the paper to investigate the influence of imposed cell boundary conditions on the molecular structural transformation of 2:1 clay minerals under different normal pressures. Simulation results show that the degrees of freedom of the simulation cell (i.e., whether the cell size or shape change is allowed) determines the final equilibrated crystal structure of clay minerals. Both the MD method and the static method have successfully revealed unforeseen structural transformations of clay minerals upon relaxation under different normal pressures. It is found that large shear distortions of clay minerals occur when full allowance is given to the cell size and shape change. A complete elimination of the interlayer spacing is observed in a static simulation. However, when only the cell size change is allowed, interlayer spacing is retained, but large internal shear stresses also exist.

  4. Coarse-grained modelling of triglyceride crystallisation: a molecular insight into tripalmitin tristearin binary mixtures by molecular dynamics simulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pizzirusso, Antonio; Brasiello, Antonio; De Nicola, Antonio; Marangoni, Alejandro G.; Milano, Giuseppe

    2015-12-01

    The first simulation study of the crystallisation of a binary mixture of triglycerides using molecular dynamics simulations is reported. Coarse-grained models of tristearin (SSS) and tripalmitin (PPP) molecules have been considered. The models have been preliminarily tested in the crystallisation of pure SSS and PPP systems. Two different quenching procedures have been tested and their performances have been analysed. The structures obtained from the crystallisation procedures show a high orientation order and a high content of molecules in the tuning fork conformation, comparable with the crystalline α phase. The behaviour of melting temperatures for the α phase of the mixture SSS/PPP obtained from the simulations is in qualitative agreement with the behaviour that was experimentally determined.

  5. Coarse-grained modelling of triglyceride crystallisation: a molecular insight into tripalmitin tristearin binary mixtures by molecular dynamics simulations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pizzirusso, Antonio; De Nicola, Antonio; Milano, Giuseppe; Brasiello, Antonio; Marangoni, Alejandro G

    2015-01-01

    The first simulation study of the crystallisation of a binary mixture of triglycerides using molecular dynamics simulations is reported. Coarse-grained models of tristearin (SSS) and tripalmitin (PPP) molecules have been considered. The models have been preliminarily tested in the crystallisation of pure SSS and PPP systems. Two different quenching procedures have been tested and their performances have been analysed. The structures obtained from the crystallisation procedures show a high orientation order and a high content of molecules in the tuning fork conformation, comparable with the crystalline α phase. The behaviour of melting temperatures for the α phase of the mixture SSS/PPP obtained from the simulations is in qualitative agreement with the behaviour that was experimentally determined. (paper)

  6. Theoretical study of molecular vibrations in electron momentum spectroscopy experiments on furan: An analytical versus a molecular dynamical approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Morini, Filippo; Deleuze, Michael S.; Watanabe, Noboru; Takahashi, Masahiko

    2015-01-01

    The influence of thermally induced nuclear dynamics (molecular vibrations) in the initial electronic ground state on the valence orbital momentum profiles of furan has been theoretically investigated using two different approaches. The first of these approaches employs the principles of Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics, whereas the so-called harmonic analytical quantum mechanical approach resorts to an analytical decomposition of contributions arising from quantized harmonic vibrational eigenstates. In spite of their intrinsic differences, the two approaches enable consistent insights into the electron momentum distributions inferred from new measurements employing electron momentum spectroscopy and an electron impact energy of 1.2 keV. Both approaches point out in particular an appreciable influence of a few specific molecular vibrations of A 1 symmetry on the 9a 1 momentum profile, which can be unravelled from considerations on the symmetry characteristics of orbitals and their energy spacing

  7. Metal cluster fission: jellium model and Molecular dynamics simulations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lyalin, Andrey G.; Obolensky, Oleg I.; Solov'yov, Ilia

    2004-01-01

    Fission of doubly charged sodium clusters is studied using the open-shell two-center deformed jellium model approximation and it ab initio molecular dynamic approach accounting for all electrons in the system. Results of calculations of fission reactions Na_10^2+ --> Na_7^+ + Na_3^+ and Na_18...

  8. Pseudorotational dynamics of small molecular species

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hagelberg, F.

    2002-01-01

    The electron nuclear dynamics (END) theory was designed to provide a full description of the dynamic development of the electronic system. It is independent of any potential energy surface constructions. The dynamic behavior of molecules close to the threshold of dissociation was the objective of this study. Thus, simulations based on END theory were performed with the aim to extend the current understanding of the dynamic features of pseudorotational into a non-adiabatic regime. Electron dynamics of triatomic species (H 3 + and Li 3 + ) in terms of electronic angular momentum expectation values were characterized. Finally, it is shown that the expansion coefficients which carry the information about the excitation content of the electronic system at any stage of the motional process can be calculated. (nevyjel)

  9. Probing the Structure and Dynamics of Proteins by Combining Molecular Dynamics Simulations and Experimental NMR Data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allison, Jane R; Hertig, Samuel; Missimer, John H; Smith, Lorna J; Steinmetz, Michel O; Dolenc, Jožica

    2012-10-09

    NMR experiments provide detailed structural information about biological macromolecules in solution. However, the amount of information obtained is usually much less than the number of degrees of freedom of the macromolecule. Moreover, the relationships between experimental observables and structural information, such as interatomic distances or dihedral angle values, may be multiple-valued and may rely on empirical parameters and approximations. The extraction of structural information from experimental data is further complicated by the time- and ensemble-averaged nature of NMR observables. Combining NMR data with molecular dynamics simulations can elucidate and alleviate some of these problems, as well as allow inconsistencies in the NMR data to be identified. Here, we use a number of examples from our work to highlight the power of molecular dynamics simulations in providing a structural interpretation of solution NMR data.

  10. Rheology of liquid n-triacontane: Molecular dynamics simulation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kondratyuk, N D; Norman, G E; Stegailov, V V

    2016-01-01

    Molecular dynamics is applied to calculate diffusion coefficients of n-triacontane C 30 H 62 using Einstein-Smoluchowski and Green-Kubo relations. The displacement 〈Δr 2 〉( t ) has a subdiffusive part 〈Δr 2 〉 ∼ t α , caused by molecular crowding at low temperatures. Longtime asymptotes of 〈v(0)v(t)〉 are collated with the hydrodynamic tail t -3/2 demonstrated for atomic liquids. The influence of these asymptotes on the compliance of Einstein-Smoluchowski and Green-Kubo methods is analyzed. The effects of the force field parameters on the diffusion process are treated. The results are compared with experimental data. (paper)

  11. A comparison of molecular dynamics and diffuse interface model predictions of Lennard-Jones fluid evaporation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Barbante, Paolo [Dipartimento di Matematica, Politecnico di Milano - Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32 - 20133 Milano (Italy); Frezzotti, Aldo; Gibelli, Livio [Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Aerospaziali, Politecnico di Milano - Via La Masa 34 - 20156 Milano (Italy)

    2014-12-09

    The unsteady evaporation of a thin planar liquid film is studied by molecular dynamics simulations of Lennard-Jones fluid. The obtained results are compared with the predictions of a diffuse interface model in which capillary Korteweg contributions are added to hydrodynamic equations, in order to obtain a unified description of the liquid bulk, liquid-vapor interface and vapor region. Particular care has been taken in constructing a diffuse interface model matching the thermodynamic and transport properties of the Lennard-Jones fluid. The comparison of diffuse interface model and molecular dynamics results shows that, although good agreement is obtained in equilibrium conditions, remarkable deviations of diffuse interface model predictions from the reference molecular dynamics results are observed in the simulation of liquid film evaporation. It is also observed that molecular dynamics results are in good agreement with preliminary results obtained from a composite model which describes the liquid film by a standard hydrodynamic model and the vapor by the Boltzmann equation. The two mathematical model models are connected by kinetic boundary conditions assuming unit evaporation coefficient.

  12. Viscosity calculations at molecular dynamics simulations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kirova, E M; Norman, G E

    2015-01-01

    Viscosity and diffusion are chosen as an example to demonstrate the universality of diagnostics methods in the molecular dynamics method. To emphasize the universality, three diverse systems are investigated, which differ from each other drastically: liquids with embedded atom method and pairwise interatomic interaction potentials and dusty plasma with a unique multiparametric interparticle interaction potential. Both the Einstein-Helfand and Green-Kubo relations are used. Such a particular process as glass transition is analysed at the simulation of the aluminium melt. The effect of the dust particle charge fluctuation is considered. The results are compared with the experimental data. (paper)

  13. Three-stage classical molecular dynamics model for simulation of heavy-ion fusion

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Godre Subodh S.

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available A three-stage Classical Molecular Dynamics (3S-CMD approach for heavy-ion fusion is developed. In this approach the Classical Rigid-Body Dynamics simulation for heavy-ion collision involving light deformed nucleus is initiated on their Rutherford trajectories at very large initial separation. Collision simulation is then followed by relaxation of the rigid-body constrains for one or both the colliding nuclei at distances close to the barrier when the trajectories of all the nucleons are obtained in a Classical Molecular Dynamics approach. This 3S-CMD approach explicitly takes into account not only the long range Coulomb reorientation of the deformed collision partner but also the internal vibrational excitations of one or both the nuclei at distances close to the barrier. The results of the dynamical simulation for 24Mg+208Pb collision show significant modification of the fusion barrier and calculated fusion cross sections due to internal excitations.

  14. Concept of a Cloud Service for Data Preparation and Computational Control on Custom HPC Systems in Application to Molecular Dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Puzyrkov, Dmitry; Polyakov, Sergey; Podryga, Viktoriia; Markizov, Sergey

    2018-02-01

    At the present stage of computer technology development it is possible to study the properties and processes in complex systems at molecular and even atomic levels, for example, by means of molecular dynamics methods. The most interesting are problems related with the study of complex processes under real physical conditions. Solving such problems requires the use of high performance computing systems of various types, for example, GRID systems and HPC clusters. Considering the time consuming computational tasks, the need arises of software for automatic and unified monitoring of such computations. A complex computational task can be performed over different HPC systems. It requires output data synchronization between the storage chosen by a scientist and the HPC system used for computations. The design of the computational domain is also quite a problem. It requires complex software tools and algorithms for proper atomistic data generation on HPC systems. The paper describes the prototype of a cloud service, intended for design of atomistic systems of large volume for further detailed molecular dynamic calculations and computational management for this calculations, and presents the part of its concept aimed at initial data generation on the HPC systems.

  15. Concept of a Cloud Service for Data Preparation and Computational Control on Custom HPC Systems in Application to Molecular Dynamics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Puzyrkov Dmitry

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available At the present stage of computer technology development it is possible to study the properties and processes in complex systems at molecular and even atomic levels, for example, by means of molecular dynamics methods. The most interesting are problems related with the study of complex processes under real physical conditions. Solving such problems requires the use of high performance computing systems of various types, for example, GRID systems and HPC clusters. Considering the time consuming computational tasks, the need arises of software for automatic and unified monitoring of such computations. A complex computational task can be performed over different HPC systems. It requires output data synchronization between the storage chosen by a scientist and the HPC system used for computations. The design of the computational domain is also quite a problem. It requires complex software tools and algorithms for proper atomistic data generation on HPC systems. The paper describes the prototype of a cloud service, intended for design of atomistic systems of large volume for further detailed molecular dynamic calculations and computational management for this calculations, and presents the part of its concept aimed at initial data generation on the HPC systems.

  16. Ab initio molecular dynamics of the reaction of quercetin with superoxide radical

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lespade, Laure

    2016-01-01

    Highlights: • Ab initio molecular dynamics is performed to describe the reaction of quercetin and superoxide. • The reaction occurs near the sites 4′ and 7 when the system contains sufficiently water molecules. • The difference of reactivity of superoxide compared to commonly used radicals as DPPH · or ABTS ·+ is explained. - Abstract: Superoxide plays an important role in biology but in unregulated concentrations it is implicated in a lot of diseases such as cancer or atherosclerosis. Antioxidants like flavonoids are abundant in plant and are good scavengers of superoxide radical. The modeling of superoxide scavenging by flavonoids from the diet still remains a challenge. In this study, ab initio molecular dynamics of the reaction of the flavonoid quercetin toward superoxide radical has been carried out using Car–Parrinello density functional theory. The study has proven different reactant solvation by modifying the number of water molecules surrounding superoxide. The reaction consists in the gift of a hydrogen atom of one of the hydroxyl groups of quercetin to the radical. When it occurs, it is relatively fast, lower than 100 fs. Calculations show that it depends largely on the environment of the hydroxyl group giving its hydrogen atom, the geometry of the first water layer and the presence of a certain number of water molecules in the second layer, indicating a great influence of the solvent on the reactivity.

  17. Evaluation of uranium dioxide thermal conductivity using molecular dynamics simulations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Woongkee; Kaviany, Massoud; Shim, J. H.

    2014-01-01

    It can be extended to larger space, time scale and even real reactor situation with fission product as multi-scale formalism. Uranium dioxide is a fluorite structure with Fm3m space group. Since it is insulator, dominant heat carrier is phonon, rather than electrons. So, using equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, we present the appropriate calculation parameters in MD simulation by calculating thermal conductivity and application of it to the thermal conductivity of polycrystal. In this work, we investigate thermal conductivity of uranium dioxide and optimize the parameters related to its process. In this process, called Green Kubo formula, there are two parameters i.e correlation length and sampling interval, which effect on ensemble integration in order to obtain thermal conductivity. Through several comparisons, long correlation length and short sampling interval give better results. Using this strategy, thermal conductivity of poly crystal is obtained and comparison with that of pure crystal is made. Thermal conductivity of poly crystal show lower value that that of pure crystal. In further study, we broaden the study to transport coefficient of radiation damaged structures using molecular dynamics. Although molecular dynamics is tools for treating microscopic scale, most macroscopic issues related to nuclear materials such as voids in fuel materials and weakened mechanical properties by radiation are based on microscopic basis. Thus, research on microscopic scale would be expanded in this field and many hidden mechanism in atomic scales will be revealed via both atomic scale simulations and experiments

  18. In situ structure and dynamics of DNA origami determined through molecular dynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yoo, Jejoong; Aksimentiev, Aleksei

    2013-12-10

    The DNA origami method permits folding of long single-stranded DNA into complex 3D structures with subnanometer precision. Transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and recently cryo-EM tomography have been used to characterize the properties of such DNA origami objects, however their microscopic structures and dynamics have remained unknown. Here, we report the results of all-atom molecular dynamics simulations that characterized the structural and mechanical properties of DNA origami objects in unprecedented microscopic detail. When simulated in an aqueous environment, the structures of DNA origami objects depart from their idealized targets as a result of steric, electrostatic, and solvent-mediated forces. Whereas the global structural features of such relaxed conformations conform to the target designs, local deformations are abundant and vary in magnitude along the structures. In contrast to their free-solution conformation, the Holliday junctions in the DNA origami structures adopt a left-handed antiparallel conformation. We find the DNA origami structures undergo considerable temporal fluctuations on both local and global scales. Analysis of such structural fluctuations reveals the local mechanical properties of the DNA origami objects. The lattice type of the structures considerably affects global mechanical properties such as bending rigidity. Our study demonstrates the potential of all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to play a considerable role in future development of the DNA origami field by providing accurate, quantitative assessment of local and global structural and mechanical properties of DNA origami objects.

  19. Molecular dynamics of interfacial water and cations associated with clay minerals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cygan, Randall T.; Greathouse, Jeffery A.; Teich-McGoldrick, Stephanie L.; Nenoff, Tina M.; Daemen, Luke L.

    2012-01-01

    Document available in extended abstract form only. Clay mineral interfaces, including interlayer and external surfaces, play an essential role in many geochemical processes. Adsorption, dissolution, precipitation, nucleation, and growth mechanisms, in particular, are controlled by the interplay of structure, thermodynamics, kinetics, and transport at clay mineral-water interfaces. Molecular details of these geochemical processes are especially important in evaluating the fate of radionuclide waste in the environment. Such details are typically beyond the sensitivity of experimental and analytical methods and therefore require accurate models and simulations. Also, the basal surfaces and interlayers of clay minerals offer structurally constrained interfacial environments to better evaluate the local molecular chemistry. We have developed and used classical and quantum methods to examine the complex behavior of clay mineral-water interfaces and dynamics of interlayer species. Bulk structures, swelling behavior, diffusion, and adsorption processes are evaluated and compared to experimental and spectroscopic findings. In particular, inelastic neutron scattering methods provide a successful probe of vibrational behavior of interlayer species to help guide the simulations. Librations involving rock, wag, and twist motions of water molecules are particularly sensitive to the interlayer environment of smectite minerals such as montmorillonite and beidellite. Trends in librational modes for interlayer water as a function of clay structure and cation hydration energy are readily explained using structural and vibrational analysis derived from molecular simulation. Molecular dynamics simulations of virtual phases, including hydrated pyrophyllite, help to explain the behavior of interlayer water that is not associated with cation species. Additionally, we use large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of other layered minerals, such as muscovite, to evaluate adsorption

  20. Molecular dynamics simulation of polyacrylamides in potassium montmorillonite clay hydrates

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zhang Junfang [CSIRO Petroleum Resources, Ian Wark Laboratory, Bayview Avenue, Clayton, Victoria 3168 (Australia); Rivero, Mayela [CSIRO Petroleum, PO Box 1130, Bentley, Western Australia, 6102 (Australia); Choi, S K [CSIRO Petroleum Resources, Ian Wark Laboratory, Bayview Avenue, Clayton, Victoria 3168 (Australia)

    2007-02-14

    We present molecular dynamics simulation results for polyacrylamide in potassium montmorillonite clay-aqueous systems. Interlayer molecular structure and dynamics properties are investigated. The number density profile, radial distribution function, root-mean-square deviation (RMSD), mean-square displacement (MSD) and diffusion coefficient are reported. The calculations are conducted in constant NVT ensembles, at T = 300 K and with layer spacing of 40 A. Our simulation results showed that polyacrylamides had little impact on the structure of interlayer water. Density profiles and radial distribution function indicated that hydration shells were formed. In the presence of polyacrylamides more potassium counterions move close to the clay surface while water molecules move away, indicating that potassium counterions are hydrated to a lesser extent than the system in which no polyacrylamides were added. The diffusion coefficients for potassium and water decreased when polyacrylamides were added.

  1. ATK-ForceField: a new generation molecular dynamics software package

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schneider, Julian; Hamaekers, Jan; Chill, Samuel T.; Smidstrup, Søren; Bulin, Johannes; Thesen, Ralph; Blom, Anders; Stokbro, Kurt

    2017-12-01

    ATK-ForceField is a software package for atomistic simulations using classical interatomic potentials. It is implemented as a part of the Atomistix ToolKit (ATK), which is a Python programming environment that makes it easy to create and analyze both standard and highly customized simulations. This paper will focus on the atomic interaction potentials, molecular dynamics, and geometry optimization features of the software, however, many more advanced modeling features are available. The implementation details of these algorithms and their computational performance will be shown. We present three illustrative examples of the types of calculations that are possible with ATK-ForceField: modeling thermal transport properties in a silicon germanium crystal, vapor deposition of selenium molecules on a selenium surface, and a simulation of creep in a copper polycrystal.

  2. Uncovering the Connection Between Low-Frequency Dynamics and Phase Transformation Phenomena in Molecular Solids

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruggiero, Michael T.; Zhang, Wei; Bond, Andrew D.; Mittleman, Daniel M.; Zeitler, J. Axel

    2018-05-01

    The low-frequency motions of molecules in the condensed phase have been shown to be vital to a large number of physical properties and processes. However, in the case of disordered systems, it is often difficult to elucidate the atomic-level details surrounding these phenomena. In this work, we have performed an extensive experimental and computational study on the molecular solid camphor, which exhibits a rich and complex structure-dynamics relationship, and undergoes an order-disorder transition near ambient conditions. The combination of x-ray diffraction, variable temperature and pressure terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, ab initio molecular dynamics, and periodic density functional theory calculations enables a complete picture of the phase transition to be obtained, inclusive of mechanistic, structural, and thermodynamic phenomena. Additionally, the low-frequency vibrations of a disordered solid are characterized for the first time with atomic-level precision, uncovering a clear link between such motions and the phase transformation. Overall, this combination of methods allows for significant details to be obtained for disordered solids and the associated transformations, providing a framework that can be directly applied for a wide range of similar systems.

  3. Molecular dynamics study on the relaxation properties of bilayered ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    2017-08-31

    Aug 31, 2017 ... Abstract. The influence of defects on the relaxation properties of bilayered graphene (BLG) has been studied by molecular dynamics simulation in nanometre sizes. Type and position of defects were taken into account in the calculated model. The results show that great changes begin to occur in the ...

  4. Molecular dynamics studies of crystalline nucleation in one-component Yukawa plasmas

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ravelo, R.; Hammerberg, J.E.; Holian, B.L.

    1992-01-01

    We report on molecular dynamics studies of one-component Yukawa plasmas undergoing rapid quenches from a fluid state with a Coulomb parameter Γ = 40 to solid states in the range 350 < Γ < 800. The detailed dynamical structure of ordering appears more complicated than results from classical theories of nucleation, with planar formation being observed before fully 3-dimensional ordering appears

  5. Reactive molecular dynamic simulations on the gas separation performance of porous graphene membrane.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Esfandiarpoor, Somaye; Fazli, Mostafa; Ganji, Masoud Darvish

    2017-11-29

    The separation of gases molecules with similar diameter and shape is an important area of research. For example, the major challenge to set up sweeping carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) in power plants is the energy requisite to separate the CO 2 from flue gas. Porous graphene has been proposed as superior material for highly selective membranes for gas separation. Here we design some models of porous graphene with different sizes and shape as well as employ double layers porous graphene for efficient CO 2 /H 2 separation. The selectivity and permeability of gas molecules through various nanopores were investigated by using the reactive molecular dynamics simulation which considers the bond forming/breaking mechanism for all atoms. Furthermore, it uses a geometry-dependent charge calculation scheme that accounts appropriately for polarization effect which can play an important role in interacting systems. It was found that H-modified porous graphene membrane with pore diameter (short side) of about 3.75 Å has excellent selectivity for CO 2 /H 2 separation. The mechanism of gas penetration through the sub-nanometer pore was presented for the first time. The accuracy of MD simulation results validated by valuable DFT method. The present findings show that reactive MD simulation can propose an economical means of separating gases mixture.

  6. Accelerated sampling by infinite swapping of path integral molecular dynamics with surface hopping

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Jianfeng; Zhou, Zhennan

    2018-02-01

    To accelerate the thermal equilibrium sampling of multi-level quantum systems, the infinite swapping limit of a recently proposed multi-level ring polymer representation is investigated. In the infinite swapping limit, the ring polymer evolves according to an averaged Hamiltonian with respect to all possible surface index configurations of the ring polymer and thus connects the surface hopping approach to the mean-field path-integral molecular dynamics. A multiscale integrator for the infinite swapping limit is also proposed to enable efficient sampling based on the limiting dynamics. Numerical results demonstrate the huge improvement of sampling efficiency of the infinite swapping compared with the direct simulation of path-integral molecular dynamics with surface hopping.

  7. Molecular structures and intramolecular dynamics of pentahalides

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ischenko, A. A.

    2017-03-01

    This paper reviews advances of modern gas electron diffraction (GED) method combined with high-resolution spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations in studies of the impact of intramolecular dynamics in free molecules of pentahalides. Some recently developed approaches to the electron diffraction data interpretation, based on direct incorporation of the adiabatic potential energy surface parameters to the diffraction intensity are described. In this way, complementary data of different experimental and computational methods can be directly combined for solving problems of the molecular structure and its dynamics. The possibility to evaluate some important parameters of the adiabatic potential energy surface - barriers to pseudorotation and saddle point of intermediate configuration from diffraction intensities in solving the inverse GED problem is demonstrated on several examples. With increasing accuracy of the electron diffraction intensities and the development of the theoretical background of electron scattering and data interpretation, it has become possible to investigate complex nuclear dynamics in fluxional systems by the GED method. Results of other research groups are also included in the discussion.

  8. Multiscale simulations of patchy particle systems combining Molecular Dynamics, Path Sampling and Green's Function Reaction Dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bolhuis, Peter

    Important reaction-diffusion processes, such as biochemical networks in living cells, or self-assembling soft matter, span many orders in length and time scales. In these systems, the reactants' spatial dynamics at mesoscopic length and time scales of microns and seconds is coupled to the reactions between the molecules at microscopic length and time scales of nanometers and milliseconds. This wide range of length and time scales makes these systems notoriously difficult to simulate. While mean-field rate equations cannot describe such processes, the mesoscopic Green's Function Reaction Dynamics (GFRD) method enables efficient simulation at the particle level provided the microscopic dynamics can be integrated out. Yet, many processes exhibit non-trivial microscopic dynamics that can qualitatively change the macroscopic behavior, calling for an atomistic, microscopic description. The recently developed multiscale Molecular Dynamics Green's Function Reaction Dynamics (MD-GFRD) approach combines GFRD for simulating the system at the mesocopic scale where particles are far apart, with microscopic Molecular (or Brownian) Dynamics, for simulating the system at the microscopic scale where reactants are in close proximity. The association and dissociation of particles are treated with rare event path sampling techniques. I will illustrate the efficiency of this method for patchy particle systems. Replacing the microscopic regime with a Markov State Model avoids the microscopic regime completely. The MSM is then pre-computed using advanced path-sampling techniques such as multistate transition interface sampling. I illustrate this approach on patchy particle systems that show multiple modes of binding. MD-GFRD is generic, and can be used to efficiently simulate reaction-diffusion systems at the particle level, including the orientational dynamics, opening up the possibility for large-scale simulations of e.g. protein signaling networks.

  9. Molecular dynamics simulation of a binary mixture near the lower critical point

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Pousaneh, Faezeh; Edholm, Olle, E-mail: oed@kth.se [Theoretical Biological Physics, Department of Theoretical Physics, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), AlbaNova University Center, SE-106 91 Stockholm (Sweden); Maciołek, Anna [Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kasprzaka 44/52, 01-224 Warsaw (Poland); Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme, Heisenbergstrasse 3, D-70569 Stuttgart (Germany)

    2016-07-07

    2,6-lutidine molecules mix with water at high and low temperatures but in a wide intermediate temperature range a 2,6-lutidine/water mixture exhibits a miscibility gap. We constructed and validated an atomistic model for 2,6-lutidine and performed molecular dynamics simulations of 2,6-lutidine/water mixture at different temperatures. We determined the part of demixing curve with the lower critical point. The lower critical point extracted from our data is located close to the experimental one. The estimates for critical exponents obtained from our simulations are in a good agreement with the values corresponding to the 3D Ising universality class.

  10. Effect of acetone accumulation on structure and dynamics of lipid membranes studied by molecular dynamics simulations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Posokhov, Yevgen O; Kyrychenko, Alexander

    2013-10-01

    The modulation of the properties and function of cell membranes by small volatile substances is important for many biomedical applications. Despite available experimental results, molecular mechanisms of action of inhalants and organic solvents, such as acetone, on lipid membranes remain not well understood. To gain a better understanding of how acetone interacts with membranes, we have performed a series of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of a POPC bilayer in aqueous solution in the presence of acetone, whose concentration was varied from 2.8 to 11.2 mol%. The MD simulations of passive distribution of acetone between a bulk water phase and a lipid bilayer show that acetone favors partitioning into the water-free region of the bilayer, located near the carbonyl groups of the phospholipids and at the beginning of the hydrocarbon core of the lipid membrane. Using MD umbrella sampling, we found that the permeability barrier of ~0.5 kcal/mol exists for acetone partitioning into the membrane. In addition, a Gibbs free energy profile of the acetone penetration across a bilayer demonstrates a favorable potential energy well of -3.6 kcal/mol, located at 15-16Å from the bilayer center. The analysis of the structural and dynamics properties of the model membrane revealed that the POPC bilayer can tolerate the presence of acetone in the concentration range of 2.8-5.6 mol%. The accumulation of the higher acetone concentration of 11.2 mol% results, however, in drastic disordering of phospholipid packing and the increase in the membrane fluidity. The acetone molecules push the lipid heads apart and, hence, act as spacers in the headgroup region. This effect leads to the increase in the average headgroup area per molecule. In addition, the acyl tail region of the membrane also becomes less dense. We suggest, therefore, that the molecular mechanism of acetone action on the phospholipid bilayer has many common features with the effects of short chain alcohols, DMSO, and

  11. Applications of the semiclassical spectral method to nuclear, atomic, molecular, and polymeric dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Koszykowski, M.L.; Pfeffer, G.A.; Noid, D.W.

    1987-01-01

    Nonlinear dynamics plays a dominant role in a variety of important problems in chemical physics. Examples are unimolecular reactions, infrared multiphoton decomposition of molecules, the pumping process of the gamma ray laser, dissociation of vibrationally excited state-selected van der Waals's complexes, and many other chemical and atomic processes. The present article discusses recent theoretical studies on the quasi-periodic and chaotic dynamic aspects of vibrational-rotational states of atomic, nuclear, and molecular systems using the semiclassical spectral method (SSM). The authors note that the coordinates, momenta, and so on, are found using classical mechanics in the studies included in this review. They outline the semiclassical spectral method and a wide variety of applications. Although this technique was first developed ten years ago, it has proved to be tremendously successful as a tool used in dynamics problems. Applications include problems in nonlinear dynamics, molecular and atomic spectra, surface science, astronomy and stellar dynamics, nuclear physics, and polymer physics

  12. Molecular dynamics study of dual-phase microstructure of Titanium and Zirconium metals during the quenching process

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miyazaki, Narumasa; Sato, Kazunori; Shibutani, Yoji

    Dual-phase (DP) transformation, which is composed of felite- and/or martensite- multicomponent microstructural phases, is one of the most effective tools to product functional alloys. To obtain this DP structure such as DP steels and other materials, we usually apply thermal processes such as quenching, tempering and annealing. As the transformation dynamics of DP microstructure depends on conditions of temperature, annealing time, and quenching rate, physical properties of materials are able to be tuned by controlling microstructure type, size, their interfaces and so on. In this study, to understand the behavior of DP transformation and to control physical properties of materials by tuning DP microstructures, we analyze the atomistic dynamics of DP transformation during the quenching process and the detail of DP microstructures by using the molecular dynamics simulations. As target metals of DP transformation, we focus on group 4 transition metals, such as Ti and Zr described by EAM interatomic potentials. For Ti and Zr models we perform molecular dynamics simulations by assuming melt-quenching process from 3000 K to 0 K under the isothermal-isobaric ensemble. During the process for each material, we observe liquid to HCP like transition around the melting temperature, and continuously HCP-BCC like transition around martensitic transformation temperature. Furthermore, we clearly distinguish DP microstructure for each quenched model.

  13. Molecular dynamics study on condensation/evaporation coefficients of chain molecules at liquid-vapor interface.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nagayama, Gyoko; Takematsu, Masaki; Mizuguchi, Hirotaka; Tsuruta, Takaharu

    2015-07-07

    The structure and thermodynamic properties of the liquid-vapor interface are of fundamental interest for numerous technological implications. For simple molecules, e.g., argon and water, the molecular condensation/evaporation behavior depends strongly on their translational motion and the system temperature. Existing molecular dynamics (MD) results are consistent with the theoretical predictions based on the assumption that the liquid and vapor states in the vicinity of the liquid-vapor interface are isotropic. Additionally, similar molecular condensation/evaporation characteristics have been found for long-chain molecules, e.g., dodecane. It is unclear, however, whether the isotropic assumption is valid and whether the molecular orientation or the chain length of the molecules affects the condensation/evaporation behavior at the liquid-vapor interface. In this study, MD simulations were performed to study the molecular condensation/evaporation behavior of the straight-chain alkanes, i.e., butane, octane, and dodecane, at the liquid-vapor interface, and the effects of the molecular orientation and chain length were investigated in equilibrium systems. The results showed that the condensation/evaporation behavior of chain molecules primarily depends on the molecular translational energy and the surface temperature and is independent of the molecular chain length. Furthermore, the orientation at the liquid-vapor interface was disordered when the surface temperature was sufficiently higher than the triple point and had no significant effect on the molecular condensation/evaporation behavior. The validity of the isotropic assumption was confirmed, and we conclude that the condensation/evaporation coefficients can be predicted by the liquid-to-vapor translational length ratio, even for chain molecules.

  14. Elastic properties of surfactant monolayers at liquid-liquid interfaces: A molecular dynamics study

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Laradji, Mohamed; Mouritsen, Ole G.

    2000-01-01

    Using a simple molecular model based on the Lennard-Jones potential, we systematically study the elastic properties of liquid-liquid interfaces containing surfactant molecules by means of extensive and large-scale molecular dynamics simulations. The main elastic constants of the interface, corres...

  15. Vision-Augmented Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Nanoindentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rajab Al-Sayegh

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available We present a user-friendly vision-augmented technique to carry out atomic simulation using hand gestures. The system is novel in its concept as it enables the user to directly manipulate the atomic structures on the screen, in 3D space using hand gestures, allowing the exploration and visualisation of molecular interactions at different relative conformations. The hand gestures are used to pick and place atoms on the screen allowing thereby the ease of carrying out molecular dynamics simulation in a more efficient way. The end result is that users with limited expertise in developing molecular structures can now do so easily and intuitively by the use of body gestures to interact with the simulator to study the system in question. The proposed system was tested by simulating the crystal anisotropy of crystalline silicon during nanoindentation. A long-range (Screened bond order Tersoff potential energy function was used during the simulation which revealed the value of hardness and elastic modulus being similar to what has been found previously from the experiments. We anticipate that our proposed system will open up new horizons to the current methods on how an MD simulation is designed and executed.

  16. Coupled electron-phonon transport from molecular dynamics with quantum baths

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lu, Jing Tao; Wang, J. S.

    2009-01-01

    Based on generalized quantum Langevin equations for the tight-binding wavefunction amplitudes and lattice displacements, electron and phonon quantum transport are obtained exactly using molecular dynamics (MD) in the ballistic regime. The electron-phonon interactions can be handled with a quasi...

  17. A resource letter CSSMD-1: computer simulation studies by the method of molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Goel, S.P.; Hockney, R.W.

    1974-01-01

    A comprehensive bibliography on computer simulation studies by the method of Molecular Dynamics is presented. The bibliography includes references to relevant literature published up to mid 1973, starting from the first paper of Alder and Wainwright, published in 1957. The procedure of the method of Molecular Dynamics, the main fields of study in which it has been used, its limitations and how these have been overcome in some cases are also discussed [pt

  18. Development of a quantum chemical molecular dynamics tribochemical simulator and its application to tribochemical reaction dynamics of lubricant additives

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Onodera, T; Tsuboi, H; Hatakeyama, N; Endou, A; Miyamoto, A; Miura, R; Takaba, H; Suzuki, A; Kubo, M

    2010-01-01

    Tribology at the atomistic and molecular levels has been theoretically studied by a classical molecular dynamics (MD) method. However, this method inherently cannot simulate the tribochemical reaction dynamics because it does not consider the electrons in nature. Although the first-principles based MD method has recently been used for understanding the chemical reaction dynamics of several molecules in the tribology field, the method cannot simulate the tribochemical reaction dynamics of a large complex system including solid surfaces and interfaces due to its huge computation costs. On the other hand, we have developed a quantum chemical MD tribochemical simulator on the basis of a hybrid tight-binding quantum chemical/classical MD method. In the simulator, the central part of the chemical reaction dynamics is calculated by the tight-binding quantum chemical MD method, and the remaining part is calculated by the classical MD method. Therefore, the developed tribochemical simulator realizes the study on tribochemical reaction dynamics of a large complex system, which cannot be treated by using the conventional classical MD or the first-principles MD methods. In this paper, we review our developed quantum chemical MD tribochemical simulator and its application to the tribochemical reaction dynamics of a few lubricant additives

  19. Classical molecular dynamics simulation of weakly-bound projectile heavy-ion reactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Morker Mitul R.

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available A 3-body classical molecular dynamics approach for heavy-ion reactions involving weakly bound projectiles is developed. In this approach a weakly bound projectile is constructed as a two-body cluster of the constituent tightly bound nuclei in a configuration corresponding to the observed breakup energy. This 3-body system with their individual nucleon configuration in their ground state is dynamically evolved for given initial conditions using the three-stage classical molecular dynamics approach (3S-CMD. Various levels of rigidbody constraints on the projectile constituents and the target are considered at appropriate stages. This 3-dimensional approach explicitly takes into account not only the long range Coulomb reorientation of the deformed collision partner but internal excitations and breakup probabilities at distances close to the barrier also. Dynamical simulations of 6Li+209Bi show all the possible reaction mechanism like complete fusion, incomplete fusion, scattering and breakup scattering. Complete fusion cross sections of 6Li+209Bi and 7Li+209Bi reactions are calculated in this approach with systematic relaxations of the rigid-body constraints on one or more constituent nuclei.

  20. Molecular dynamics of bacteriorhodopsin.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lupo, J A; Pachter, R

    1997-02-01

    A model of bacteriorhodopsin (bR), with a retinal chromophore attached, has been derived for a molecular dynamics simulation. A method for determining atomic coordinates of several ill-defined strands was developed using a structure prediction algorithm based on a sequential Kalman filter technique. The completed structure was minimized using the GROMOS force field. The structure was then heated to 293 K and run for 500 ps at constant temperature. A comparison with the energy-minimized structure showed a slow increase in the all-atom RMS deviation over the first 200 ps, leveling off to approximately 2.4 A relative to the starting structure. The final structure yielded a backbone-atom RMS deviation from the crystallographic structure of 2.8 A. The residue neighbors of the chromophore atoms were followed as a function of time. The set of persistent near-residue neighbors supports the theory that differences in pKa values control access to the Schiff base proton, rather than formation of a counterion complex.