Implicit Models for Condensed Phases

Another way in which polarizability is included implicitly is in the value of the partial charges, qi, that are assigned to the atoms in the model. The charges used in potential energy models for condensed phases are often enhanced from the values that would be consistent with the gas-phase dipole moment, or those that would best reproduce the electrostatic potential (ESP)... 

Implicit solvation models developed for condensed phases represent the solvent by a continuous electric field, and are based on the Poisson equation, which is valid when a surrounding dielectric medium responds linearly to the charge distribution of the solute. The Poisson equation is actually a special case of the Poisson-Boltzmann (PB) equation PB electrostatics applies when electrolytes are present in solution while the Poisson equation applies when no ions are present. Solving the Poisson equation for an arbitrary equation requires numerical methods, and many researchers have developed an alternative way to approximate the Poisson equation that can be solved analytically, known as the... 

Implicit solvation models developed for condensed phases represent the solvent by a continuous electric field, and are based on the Poisson equation, which is valid when a surrounding dielectric medium responds linearly to the charge distribution of the solute. The Poisson equation is actually a special case of the Poisson-Boltzmann (PB) equation PB electrostatics applies when electrolytes are present in solution, while the Poisson equation applies when no ions are present. Solving the Poisson equation for an arbitrary equation requires numerical methods, and many researchers have developed an alternative way to approximate the Poisson equation that can be solved analytically, known as the Generalized Born (GB) approach. The most common implicit models used for small molecules are the Conductor-like Screening Model (COSMO) [96,97], the Dielectric Polarized Continuum Model (DPCM) [98], the Conductor-like modification to the Polarized Continuum Model (CPCM) [99], the Integral Equation Formalism implementation of PCM (lEF-PCM) [100] PB models and the GB SMx models of Cramer and Truhlar [52,57,101,102]. The newest Miimesota solvation models are the SMD (universal Solvation Model based on solute electron Density [57]) and the SMLVE method, which combines the surface and volume polarization for electrostatic interactions model (SVPE) [103-105] with semiempirical terms that account for local electrostatics [106]. Further details on these methods can be found in Chapter 11 of reference 52. 

Most of the potential energy surfaces reviewed so far have been based on effective pair potentials. It is assumed that the parameterization is such as to account for nonadditive interactions, but in a nonexplicit way. A simple example is the use of a charge distribution with a dipole moment of 2.ID in the ST2 model. However, it is well known that there are significant non-pairwise additive interactions in liquid water and several attempts have been made to include them explicitly in simulations. Nonadditivity can arise in several ways. We have already discussed induced dipole interactions, which are a consequence of the permanent diple moment and polarizability of the molecules. A second type of nonadditive interaction arises from the deformation of the molecules in a condensed phase. Some contributions from such terms are implicitly included in calculations based on flexible molecule potentials. Other contributions arises from electron correlation, exchange, and similar effects. A good example is the Axilrod-Teller three-body dispersion interaction ... 

Actually, the problem stems from the very nature of empirical potentials whose parameters have been optimized to reproduce by simulation very few thermodynamic and/or dynamic properties at a specified P and T. This makes the resulting function a state-dependent potential whose behavior under different P and T conditions might be unpredictable. For instance, two-body effective potentials that include non-additive effects in an implicit way might be poorly transferable under conditions when their effect on the well depth becomes significant. On the other hand, potential models with parameters optimized on a wide base of diverse experimental data of gas and condensed phase could perform better from this point of view. 

The methods have been very successful, but they do suffer drawbacks. The lack of parameters for many elements seriously limits the types of problems to which the methods can be applied and their accuracy for certain problems is not very good (for example, both MNDO and AM 1 do not well describe water-water interactions). There are also questions about the theoretical foundations of the models. The parameterization is performed using experimental data at a temperature of 298K and implicitly includes vibrational and correlation information about the state of the system. Therefore, the parameterization is used, in part, to compensate for quantities that the HF method cannot, by itself, account for. But what happens if vibrational or correlation energy calculations are performed With these caveats and if one can be certain of their accuracy in given circumstances, the methods are very useful as calculations can be performed with them much more quickly than ab initio QM calculations. Even so, they are probably still too computationally intensive to treat complete condensed phase systems in a routine manner. 

The reason that atom-atom potentials are so popular, especially in the study of condensed phases [34] and more complex Van der Waals molecules [35], is that they contain few parameters and can be cheaply calculated, while they still describe (implicitly) the anisotropy of the intermolecular potential and they even model its dependence on the internal molecular coordinates. Moreover, they are often believed to be transferable, which implies that the same atom-atom interaction parameters in Eq. (6) can be used for the same types of atoms in different molecules. One should realize, however, that the accuracy of atom-atom potentials is limited by Eq. (5). Further inaccuracies are introduced when the atom-atom interaction parameters in Eq. (6) are transferred from one molecular environment to another. Furthermore, Eq. (6) does not include a term which represents the induction interactions and there is the intrinsic problem that these interactions are inherently not pairwise additive (see Sect. 1.4). Numerical experimentation on the C2H4-C2H4 and N2-N2 potentials, for example, has taught us [31, 33] that even when sufficient ab initio data are available, so that the terms in Eq. (6) can be fitted individually to the corresponding ab initio contributions and, moreover, the positions of the force centers for each term can be optimized, the average error in the best fit of each contribution still remains about 10%. Since the different contributions to the potential partly cancel each other... 

Here, we focus our attention on phase separation in complex fluids that are characterized by the large internal degrees of freedom. In all conventional theories of critical phenomena and phase separation, the same dynamics for the two components of a binary mixture, which we call dynamic symmetry between the components, has been implicitly assumed [1, 2]. However, this assumption is not always valid especially in complex fluids. Recently, we have found [3,4] that in mixtures having intrinsic dynamic asymmetry between its components (e.g. a polymer solution composed of long chain-like molecules and simple liquid molecules and a mixture composed of components whose glass-transition temperatures are quite different), critical concentration fluctuation is not necessarily only the slow mode of the system and, thus, we have to consider the interplay between critical dynamics and the slow dynamics of material itself In addition to a solid and a fluid model, we probably need a third general model for phase separation in condensed matter, which we call viscoelastic model . 

The PM3-PIF models that have been developed in the past decade were aimed to enable more realistic studies of solutes in aqueous solutions. The fact that at the center of the model there is a correct structural and energetic description of the intermolecular forces governing the physical and chemical behavior of a condensed phase makes of these PM3-PIF models an excellent choice for a large exploration of the dynamic and structural properties of solutions. A clear obstacle for an ample use of these models is the need to obtain specific atomic pair parameters for each system and, as recently found, they are not necessarily transferable [34]. However, the advantage of having an inexpensive model including implicit polarizability and molecular flexibility with a satisfactory description of interactions makes worth the parameterization challenge. 

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