Molecular dynamics , potential energy basic principles

The strategy in a molecular dynamics simulation is conceptually fairly simple. The first step is to consider a set of molecules. Then it is necessary to choose initial positions of all atoms, such that they do not physically overlap, and that all bonds between the atoms have a reasonable length. Subsequently, it is necessary to specify the initial velocities of all the atoms. The velocities must preferably be consistent with the temperature in the system. Finally, and most importantly, it is necessary to define the force-field parameters. In effect the force field defines the potential energy of each atom. This value is a complicated sum of many contributions that can be computed when the distances of a given atom to all other atoms in the system are known. In the simulation, the spatial evolution as well as the velocity evolution of all molecules is found by solving the classical Newton equations of mechanics. The basic outcome of the simulation comprises the coordinates and velocities of all atoms as a function of the time. Thus, structural information, such as lipid conformations or membrane thickness, is readily available. Thermodynamic information is more expensive to obtain, but in principle this can be extracted from a long simulation trajectory. 

First, the current state of affairs is remarkably similar to that of the field of computational molecular dynamics 40 years ago. While the basic equations are known in principle (as we shall see), the large number of unknown parameters makes realistic simulations essentially impossible. The parameters in molecular dynamics represent the force field to which Newton s equation is applied the parameters in the CME are the rate constants. (Accepted sets of parameters for molecular dynamics are based on many years of continuous development and checking predictions with experimental measurements.) In current applications molecular dynamics is used to identify functional conformational states of macromolecules, i.e., free energy minima, from the entire ensemble of possible molecular structures. Similarly, one of the important goals of analyzing the CME is to identify functional states of areaction network from the entire ensemble of potential concentration states. These functional states are associated with the maxima in the steady state probability distribution function p(n i, no, , hn). In both the cases of molecular dynamics and the CME applied to non-trivial systems it is rarely feasible to enumerate all possible states to choose the most probable. Instead, simulations are used to intelligently and realistically sample the state space. 

Finally, we refer to a quite recent paper where a first- principles molecular dynamics simulation of amorphous and liquid Si02 was performed [14]. This work confirmed that computer simulation based on the quantum-mechanical calculation of interatomic energy gives basically the same atomic structure of amorphous Si02 as mentioned above simulations based on semiempirical potential of Eq. (1). 

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